Dr. Betty Pace is a professor and director of the Sickle Cell Disease Research Center (SCDRC) at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her first encounter with sickle cell disease came as a teenager, when her best friend Phyllis Sanders succumbed to the disease.
Losing her friend to sickle cell disease inspired Dr. Pace to embark on a mission to research the disease and one day help find a cure.
At the SCDRC, Dr. Pace leads an eight member, basic research and teaching laboratory at UT Dallas focused on research related to hemoglobin gene regulation and the design of drugs to induce fetal hemoglobin to treat sickle cell disease. Progress is being made, and the goal of a cure has never been closer.
Dr. Pace received her M.D. degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1981. She completed her Pediatric Residency at Milwaukee Children’s Hospital and then trained in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington from 1990-1994.
In 2003, Dr. Pace was recruited to the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UT Dallas where her quest to develop new treatments for sickle cell disease continues. In addition to academic endeavors, Dr. Pace served as the Chief Medical Officer for the National Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc., where she endeavored to mobilize communities to ensure increased federal support for sickle cell disease research.
More recently, a team of clinical, basic, and psychosocial researchers joined with governmental policy makers to publish the textbook, “Renaissance of Sickle Cell Disease Research in the Genome Era.” Dr. Pace served as editor for this comprehensive book.
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The Crusade of Dr. Betty Pace - Marquette Magazine
