Townes and Berkeley mice are valuable for examining SCD pathophysiology (Keleku-Lukwete et al., 2015; Nasimuzzaman et al., 2019; Szczepanek et al., 2012) and the effects of various therapeutic perturbations, including drug treatment (Oksenberg et al., 2016; Shrestha et al., 2021; Tchernychev et al., 2021; Vinchi et al., 2013), lentiviral vector gene transduction (Pawliuk et al., 2001; Perumbeti et al., 2009; Pestina et al., 2009; Urbinati et al., 2018) and disruption of genes that regulate γ-to-β-globin switching, such as Bcl11a (Xu et al., 2011). Here, BCL11A is linked to Schnyder corneal dystrophy.