Session 2 Outline

Main points for each topic:

Topic 1: who gets sickle cell disease and why; the etiology of sickle cell disease; clinical features

Topic 2: how sickle cell disease is transmitted; features of autosomal recessive traits in general; letters such as "A" and "S" can symbolize genes; pairs of genes and connection to eggs and sperm; Punnett square

Topic 3: demonstration showing that composition of alleles in parents allows prediction of possible pairs of alleles in offspring; ask class to predict phenotypes

Topic 4: review cross from session 1; ask students to predict phenotype based on info from topics 2 and 3.

If time permits we can try to synthesize many of these concepts by discussing such concepts as the advent of routine genetic testing in near future or how history and culture can affect gene frequencies.

Alternatively, students can ask any questions related to the discussion or not at the end.