Sickle Cell Anemia Research Papers

What intrigued me the most was the discovery of how having sickle cell anemia can make a person more resistant to contracting malaria If it had not been for Anthony Allison, the world as we know it today would drastically change. Like the video stated, many people with the sickle cell anemia would meet “death before adulthood”. Areas with high frequencies of anopheles mosquito and sickle cell anemia would correlate but nobody would understand why. I admire Allison for not only having the burning inquiry to determine why the sickle cell anemia character was so prevalent on the coast and near Lake Victoria of Kenya, where high frequencies of malaria were documented, but also for fully executing the scientific method before announcing his findings to the world.
We have believed Darwin’s theory that “harmful traits disappear from the gene pool through natural selection” because harmful traits wouldn’t allow organism to survive, so it is surprising to learn that “a genetic mutation that creates one disease can also protect against another disease”. This just showed how natural selection is adapting, as this connection is unique to the human race. The biological process of sickle cell anemia provides foundation for why it can protect against malaria. The genetic mutation that results in sickle cell anemia causes the red blood cells to misshapen. This blood abnormality later compromises the ability for parasite, such as the malaria infection, to reproduce. Natural selection means those healthiest and suitable to the environment will live and reproduce, yet in the video, it states that those with the normal homozygous genes from two carrier parents are vulnerable to malaria. This revelation depicts how humans and their biological processes have evolved over the years and challenged natural