Dr. Russell Ware obtained his MD and PhD degrees at Duke University, completed his Pediatric Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Duke, and served as Director of the Duke Pediatric Sickle Cell Program until 2004.  He then moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, serving as Chairman of Hematology before leading a sickle cell newborn screening program for the Republic of Angola.  In July 2013, Dr. Ware joined Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati Ohio as Director of Hematology and the Marjory Johnson Chair of Translational Hematology Research. He is also the Director of the Global Health Center.
Dr. Russell Ware is an internationally-recognized expert in the field of pediatric hematology with a special interest in sickle cell disease. He has had an NIH-funded laboratory since 1990, which has focused primarily on genetic modifiers of sickle cell disease and variable responses to hydroxyurea therapy.  He has been the national Principal Investigator for several NIH-funded clinical trials using hydroxyurea for children with sickle cell disease, including the recently completed TWiTCH trial. He now leads efforts to introduce hydroxyurea safely and effectively into the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. He recently completed a national sickle cell surveillance study in Uganda and Tanzania, as a prelude to further sickle cell screening.
Dr. Ware is a distinguished researcher and author of more than 330 peer-reviewed scientific papers and textbook chapters.  He has served on the Editorial Board of Blood and the Journal of Pediatrics, and is currently an Associate Editor for Pediatric Blood and Cancer.  He serves on two Data Safety Monitoring Committees for clinical trials in sickle cell disease and was a member of the NHLBI Expert Panel that wrote the 2014 Evidence-Based Guidelines for Sickle Cell Disease.