Monday, June 11, 2012

Genome Entry 9

Chromosome 9
Disease

Ridley also discusses about diseases in this chapter. He starts off with a discussion of variation in blood type. He also talks about the previous theory that the variation, like some others, was actually an effect of random genetic mutations instead of just natural selection. But on the other hand, it is also able to be linked to immunity and susceptibility to different diseases. These diseases include cholera which is linked to A and AB types and malaria which is more susceptible in O types. One example used in this chapter is malaria. Malaria occurs more in the African American population where they have a higher chance of having a gene linked to sickle-cell anemia. However they have an allete that's more resistance to malaria. There is a known link of immunity to malaria that affects the susceptability of that individual to sickle-cell disease.

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