Sickle Cell: Natural Selection in Humans

Topic

Resource Type

Videos
- Short Films

Level

High School — General High School — AP/IB College

Duration

00:18:26

Saved By

72 Members

View in Spanish

Description

This film explores the evolutionary connection between an infectious disease, malaria, and a genetic condition, sickle cell disease.

Scientist Tony Allison first noticed a connection between malaria and the sickle cell trait while working in East Africa in the 1950s. His discovery is one of the best understood examples of natural selection in humans. The film also features two patients who describe living with sickle cell disease and a hematologist, Natasha Archer, who describes the mechanism of how the sickle cell trait protects against malaria.

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Key Terms

allele, fitness, gene, hematology, hemoglobin, infectious disease, red blood cell, selective advantage, trait

Primary Literature

Allison, A. C. 1954. “The distribution of the sickle‐cell trait in East Africa and elsewhere, and its apparent relationship to the incidence of subtertian malaria.” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 48, 4: 312–318. https://doi.org/10.1016/0035-9203(54)90101-7.

Allison, A. C. 1954. “Protection afforded by sickle‐cell trait against subtertian malaria infection.” BMJ 1, 4857: 290–294. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.4857.290.

Archer, Natasha M., Nicole Petersen, Martha A. Clark, Caroline O. Buckee, Lauren M. Childs, and Manoj T. Duraisingh. 2018. “Resistance to Plasmodium falciparum in sickle cell trait erythrocytes is driven by oxygen-dependent growth inhibition.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, 28: 7350–7355. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804388115.