In 1904, Walter Noel was admitted to a Chicago hospital for "Anemia." It was during this time that James Herrick and his assistant discovered that Noel had sickle shaped cells within his blood.
Verry Mason named the disease "sickle cell anemia" in 1922.
Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling and colleagues were first to discover a mutation directly linked to a protein. They discovered that sickle cell anemia was caused due to the abnormality of the hemoglobin gene.