Question

Your Mother Has Tay Sachs Disease, Which Is A Recessive Trait. Your Father Has Sickle Cell Anemia, Which Is Also A Recessive Trait. You Discover That Your New Father-In-Law Has Tay Sachs And Sickle Cell Anemia. If Neither You Nor Your Spouse Has Either Tay Sachs Ar Sickle Cell Anemia, What Are The Odds That Your First Child Will Have Both Tay Sachs And sickle cell anemia?

Answer 1

It is highly unlikely that your first child will have both Tay Sachs and sickle cell anemia.

Step-by-step explanation:

To calculate the odds that your first child will have both Tay Sachs and sickle cell anemia, you need to consider the inheritance patterns of these disorders. Both Tay Sachs and sickle cell anemia are autosomal recessive disorders, meaning that two copies of the faulty gene are required for the disorders to be expressed. Since you and your spouse do not have either disorder, it is highly unlikely that your first child will have both Tay Sachs and sickle cell anemia. The odds would be extremely low, as it would require both of you to be carriers of both disorders and for the child to receive both faulty genes from each parent.