INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — Elin Lewis, a 12-year-old girl from Greenwood, has made history as the first patient in the state to receive a groundbreaking, FDA-approved gene therapy for transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, a severe inherited blood disorder that affects approximately 1,500 people in the United States.
Riley Hospital for Children is the first and only health system in Indiana to offer this therapy, and only a small number of health systems nationwide offer the treatment.
Since the age of three, Elin’s life has been defined by receiving monthly treatments that were vital to maintain her hemoglobin levels and organ function, yet they carried the persistent risk of dangerous iron overload, a side effect that can lead to chronic fatigue and weakness to life-threatening complications, including liver damage and heart failure.
The novel therapy uses a a patient’s own blood stem cells, which are collected, genetically modified in a laboratory to include a functional copy of the beta-globin gene, and then infused back into the patient. Once reintroduced, the modified cells engraft in the bone marrow and produce healthy red blood cells with functional hemoglobin.
Riley Hospital collected Elin’s stem cells in November of 2025 and modified offsite before she returned to Riley Hospital in February 2026 to prepare for the modified cells to be transplanted back into her body. She was discharged one month after her infusion and is currently engrafted with her gene-modified cells as expected.
Dr. Jonathan Bardahl, a pediatric stem cell transplant physician, is the one who performed the procedure. Dr. Bardahl completed his fellowship training in stem cell transplant at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, helping study and deliver these types of therapies before arriving at Riley Children’s Health in 2024.
Elin has spent her life in the hospital and thought she would continue having to do so. But now, she is free.
“After years of monthly transfusions, this is truly life changing. The entire care, from the doctors, the nurses to everyone who supported us on this journey, was incredible,” Elin’s mother, Monica Lewis said.
“Elin didn’t skip a beat—she’s already back on the trampoline practicing her gymnastic stunts, just being a normal kid. She has a bright, healthy future ahead of her,” she said.
“This means freedom from this condition for Elin.”
For Elin and families like hers, the future now holds an immense amount of hope and a chance at a cure.
