Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects red blood cells. People with sickle cell disease have red blood cells that contain mostly hemoglobin* S, an abnormal type of hemoglobin (Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, 2005). The sickle cell disease is more common in black Caribbean, black African and black origin people, but with our expansion and the multiculturalism everyone has the possibility of carrying this gene mutation.
Biology is the science of life and of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution. It includes botany and zoology and all their subdivisions (The Free Dictionary, 2010). In the sickle cells disease is reflected on the study of people with this gene mutation causing the sickle cells and how does this change in their genes affect them. It studies also how this tiny mutation affects the whole organism and how the population deals with this mutation that is inherited to other generations and how it affects or helps people; for example in Malaria, the sickle cells disease saved people from the infection.
Not only biology is involved in the study of this disease, lots of other branches are used to it. Chemistry is used to study how the hemoglobin in the red blood cells is affected and how it affects the oxygenation of the red blood cells. Mathematics is reflected in the study of the statistics and the possibility of heritage of the sickle cell mutation and also by studying how it affects the population in good ways or bad ways such as with the malaria. Geography in this case studies in which environments and places are the sickle cells more common like in black Caribbean, black African and black origin people. Computer Science is used to study the parasite of the malaria on the red blood cells and also how does the sickle cell look like and how they act. Physics are shown when by not being able to move the sickle cells die and storage in the body causing pain to the person with this anemia. Finally, In Ethics it’s reflected the population that would must be able to survive are the once whose body is prepared to the future infections and how the people react to the people that have the disease.
They are also applied some branches of the Biology to the complete study of this disease. Biochemistry is applied by seeing how the mutation affects the chemistry in the body. Genetics are used to see how the mutation affects the chemistry in the body. Evolution helps to see how mutations in the human body help or affect people. In the specific case of the malaria, Parasitology studies the parasite of the malaria and how it interacts with the sickle cells.
The disease of the sickle cells doesn’t only affect the blood or a single person its produces a chain that finally gets to affect everything in our environment. The molecules when they are wrongly attached produce the mutation which affects the cell and provides it of a malformation. This mutated cell affects the tissue it forms part of and the tissue affects the organs of the body by causing pain because they don’t receive enough oxygen. The malfunction of an organ ends up affecting the whole system it is part of. The system by consequence affects the whole organism. This organism by reproducing and inheriting the mutation to future generation gets to affect the population around it. The populations that share the same biological community affect by combining and by the globalization these disease continuous spreading and reproducing until it gets to the level of the biosphere.
With this disease the macromolecules that are affected are two; the proteins and the nucleic acids. The protein that is affected is the hemoglobin in the red blood cells by changing their shape, texture and rigidness. Also the nucleic acids in our body are affected because they are the DNA that transfers the information from one organism to the other and by this, transfers the mutated genes that cause the disease.
Hemoglobin is the iron-containing protein attached to red blood cells that transports oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Haemoglobin bonds with oxygen in the lungs, exchanges it for carbon dioxide at cellular level, and then transports the carbon dioxide back to the lungs to be exhaled (Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy, 2005). The hemoglobin is a protein formed of four polypeptide which has the four levels of structure of a protein which form a tetrahedral arrangement. It contains the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. The sickle cell anemia arises from a single amino acid substitution in one of the component proteins of hemoglobin. The component protein, or globin, that contains the substitution is defective (science.jrank.org, 2010).
The red blood cells that are affected become sticky and rigid and have the shape of a half moon. They attach to each other, when they try to travel through the body they get stocked because they are pasted to each other and they storage and doesn’t allows the correct oxygenation of the body causing pain to the person with the mutation.
For the prevention of the spreading of this anemia to the future generations they are taking analysis to the people and if they see they are carriers of the gene they won’t let them marry, as an extreme case. When married a couple where the both are carriers they have a 25% of possibilities of a having a kid with the sickle cell anemia, 50% of the kid to be only a carrier and the 25% for the kid to be healthy. In this case the people have the responsibility to only adopt or when the time gets for the baby to take some analysis to see if it’s healthy or not. If it isn’t you’ll have the possibility of aborting because it is way too expensive the treatments and the kid would along his life. It is a great problem because abortion is killing a life even though the kid is sick, but it would also have to live a life of sickness and also the cost of the treatments are enormous. But also it has been really helpful for people from West Africa because thanks of some to be carriers of the sickle cells disease they were safe from the malaria infection.
The sickle cell disease is a disease of a life time, but as we have seen it has been helpful to some; for some it can be a gift from evolution. The sickle cell disease should be detected so people can walk over it and live with it. It’s amazing how such a little change in the composition of our body can have such consequences and change everything for life.
REFERENCES
Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc. (2005) What is Sickle Cell Disease? URL: http://www.sicklecelldisease.org/about_scd/index.phtml
The Free Dictionary (2010) Biology. URL: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/biology
Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy (2005) Hemoglobin. URL: http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Haemoglobin
science.jrank.org (2010) Sickle Cell Anemia. URL: http://science.jrank.org/pages/6146/Sickle-Cell-Anemia.html
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