Sickle Cell Anemia Lab Report

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The point of this lab report is to explain the study of the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium as it applies to sickle-cell anemia and malaria in Africa. The point of the experiment was to determine whether having a gene for sickle-cell anemia and one normal gene would make you immune to malaria. The idea that there is a relationship between sickle-cell anemia and malaria was introduced by J. B. S. Haldane. Haldane was a british scientist who spent his life as geneticist, professor, biochemist, and writer. He was born November fifth, 1892 in Oxford, England. His father, John Scott Haldane, was a successful physiologist who did research on human respiration that affected the science world immensely. As a child, Haldane assisted his father in his research and experiments. He began this at the age of eight. Since he started so early, his knowledge was much more advanced than the average person by the time he finished his education. He completed his college education at more than one …show more content…

Haldane suggested that they have a relation because he observed the allele frequencies of malaria in places that it is common. The relationship between these two is that a genetic change in hemoglobin that causes sickle-cell anemia, but prevents malaria. Hemoglobin is a red protein that carries oxygen through the bloodstream. Since both of these conditions are fatal, the best option would clearly be to steer clear of them, but for some people this is not an option. In Africa, both are common and many die from them, but because of the special relationship between the two there could be hope for people with large chances of getting it. It would not be helpful if a person got sickle-cell anemia, but if they could just receive the trait it could be that they would have a substantially less chance of death from the two conditions. If the trait for sickle-cell anemia wasn’t in full effect it could prevent malaria, but also not cause sickle-cell

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