Prof. Kwaku Ohene-Frempong
Tenure as advisor (2019 – 2022)
Professor Kwaku Ohene-Frempong, MD, is Director Emeritus of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Ohene-Frempong was recently named a 2021 Honorific Award Recipient by the American Society of Hematology (ASH). The ASH Honorific Awards are the Society’s most prestigious awards and recognize exemplary hematologists who have made significant contributions to the field and were nominated by ASH members.
One of Dr. Ohene-Frempong’s key research achievements was his observation of the frequency of strokes in young children with SCD, and his work was instrumental in establishing bone marrow transplant as a cure for SCD. At CHOP, he emphasized the importance of education to keep an enlarged spleen, a manageable complication of sickle cell disease, from becoming fatal.
As a world-renowned authority on sickle cell disease, Dr. Ohene-Frempong received a Millennium Excellence Award from the Millennium Excellence Foundation of Ghana in December 2015.
In October 2020, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, Adm. Brett P. Giroir, MD, presented Dr. Ohene-Frempong, with the Assistant Secretary of Health Exceptional Service Medal for outstanding contributions to public health and medicine through his work in sickle cell disease (SCD). This honor is the highest civilian award from the Public Health Service, which includes all health divisions of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Dr. Ohene-Frempong received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology in 1970 from Yale University. After graduating from the Yale School of Medicine in 1975, he trained in Pediatrics at the New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center, and in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology (1977-80) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Following a 6-year service at Tulane University Medical Center to develop a Sickle Cell Disease Program in Louisiana, he returned to CHOP in 1986, where he worked until his retirement in 2016.
Dr. Ohene-Frempong has several publications to his name.