Sickle Cell Anemia
and Natural Selection
What is sickle cell anemia?
-You will have abnormal, sticky and stiff red blood cells
-You will have a lower amount of red blood cells in your body
-It is inherited, and a lifelong disease
-usually in people with an African descent
Natural Selection
-the presence of an allele for sickle-cell anemia prevents people from getting malaria
-If you are homozygous for this allele you will have both alleles of the same sort
-If you are heterozygous for this allele you will have two different alleles
-Survival for the heterozygous, because that allele protects from malaria and can be passed on to future generations
Mutation
Anything that causes the genetic structure to change; DNA is damaged or changed; DNA gene is permanently altered
In sickle cell anemia the mutation is caused by the hemoglobin variant Hb S. This will cause the red blood cells to clump together
Living with Sickle Cell Disease
Our Story: Living with and Managing Sickle Cell Disease (Nicholas H.)