noun

• A severe hereditary form of anaemia in which a mutated form of haemoglobin distorts the red blood cells into a crescent shape at low oxygen levels. It is commonest among those of African descent.

  ‘Infection can produce severe anaemia in people with sickle cell anaemia or other abnormalities of haemoglobin.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In sickle cell disease, the haemoglobin is abnormal and this causes a change in the shape of the red blood cells.’
  • ‘The blood condition sickle-cell anaemia is most common in people from Africa, the Caribbean, the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Asia.’
  • ‘One out of four African Americans is born with alpha-thalassemia; therefore, at birth, one-fourth of African Americans with sickle cell disease have this ameliorating condition.’
  • ‘If an individual inherits the mutation in both genes they will have sickle cell disease.’
  • ‘His work focused on the antigen-antibody reaction and the structure of proteins and, in 1949, Pauling's team discovered the molecular basis of sickle cell anemia.’
  • ‘Already the genes for many diseases, from sickle cell anemia to heart disease, have been pinpointed, though genetic means of treating them are still in their infancy.’
  • ‘In the simplest cases, such as sickle-cell anemia, diseases can be linked to a single gene.’
  • ‘She talks about beauty basics, as well as major concerns affecting darker skins, such as the effects of sickle cell disease, scars and keloids.’
  • ‘An important breakthrough was the concept of molecular disease, introduced in the late 1940s with Linus Pauling's elucidation of the underlying basis of sickle cell anemia.’
  • ‘People with two copies of a form of a particular gene develop sickle cell anemia, but people with one copy of that form show high resistance to malaria.’
  • ‘My dad won the monthly National Science Prize when he designed a better cure for sickle cell anemia.’