Sickle Cell Disease
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40 free Sickle Cell Disease trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Sickle cell disease is one of the most common inherited blood disorders in the world, affecting millions of people. It changes the shape of red blood cells, and that one change explains everything from attacks of severe pain to a surprising evolutionary advantage. This quiz covers the basics a school or health class would expect: how the condition passes from parents to children, what happens inside the blood, the early signs in babies, and how doctors screen for it and treat it. It also follows the history, from the first case report more than a century ago to modern gene therapies, and meets the musicians, athletes and film characters who have put the condition in the public eye. The questions range from easy enough for kids and beginners to tougher ones for biology students, and many of the facts are checked against the National Institutes of Health's own sickle cell pages. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the quiz works for revision, a classroom or an awareness event.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Carrying one copy of the sickle cell gene gives partial protection against which deadly mosquito-borne disease?
Malaria
Malaria is far less likely to kill people who carry a single sickle cell gene, which is why the gene stayed common wherever that infection was widespread.
Q 02Which singer, diagnosed with sickle cell anemia as a child, later told her story in the book A Sick Life?
T-Boz
T-Boz of TLC has been in and out of hospital since the age of seven, and she became a spokesperson for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America.
Q 03World Sickle Cell Day is marked every year on the same date as which American federal holiday?
Juneteenth
Juneteenth and World Sickle Cell Day both fall on June 19, when supporters hold Shine the Light gatherings to draw attention to the condition.
Q 04Sickle cells get their name from a curved, single-handed farm tool traditionally used for which job?
Harvesting grain
Harvesting grain has been the sickle's job since prehistoric times, and its crescent blade matches the bent shape that red blood cells take on in the disease.
Q 05In which city is Supacell set, the Netflix superhero series whose heroes share a family history of sickle cell disease?
London
South London is home to the five strangers in Supacell, and creator Rapman wrote their superpowers as a mutation of sickle cell.
Q 06Which jazz trumpeter lived with sickle cell anemia, a source of severe joint pain during the 1960s?
Miles Davis
Miles Davis underwent hip replacement surgery in 1965 using a graft from his own shin, and poor health later kept him off the stage for five years.
Q 07In 2019 Victoria Gray became the first sickle cell patient to be treated using which breakthrough technology?
CRISPR
CRISPR was used to edit her own blood-making cells, and in the trial that followed nearly every patient went at least a year without a severe pain crisis.
Q 08Sickle cell disease starts with a fault in which protein found inside red blood cells?
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobin carries oxygen, and its faulty sickle form clumps into stiff strands when oxygen runs low, bending the normally flexible cell into a rigid crescent.
Q 09In which toy-based film series does Noah Diaz struggle to support his younger brother Kris, who has sickle cell disease?
Transformers
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, set in 1994 Brooklyn, has Noah steal a Porsche for cash, only to find the car is the Autobot Mirage in disguise.
Q 10A healthy red blood cell is commonly described as shaped like which snack?
Doughnut
Doughnut is the usual comparison: a healthy cell is soft and dimpled in the middle, so it squeezes through tiny vessels where a stiff sickled cell gets stuck.
Q 11Newborns across the United States are screened for sickle cell disease using blood drops taken from which body part?
Heel
Heel pricks put a few drops of blood on a special card, and all 50 states test that card for sickle cell disease and other treatable conditions.
Q 12When both parents carry sickle cell trait, what is the chance that each child will have sickle cell disease?
1 in 4
1 in 4 is the chance at every pregnancy, whatever happened with earlier children, and on average half of the couple's children will be carriers like their parents.
Q 13In sickle cell disease, the rapid breakdown of red blood cells can turn the whites of the eyes which color?
Yellow
Yellow eyes and skin, known as jaundice, are an early sign in babies, caused by a build-up of bilirubin from broken-down red cells.
Q 21James Herrick published the first medical description of sickle cell disease in 1910 while working in which US city?
Chicago
Chicago cardiologist Herrick followed it two years later with a landmark article on heart attacks, arguing that a blocked coronary artery was not always fatal.
Q 22Walter Clement Noel, the first patient described with sickle cell disease, was a dental student from which island?
Grenada
Grenada is where Noel went home to practice dentistry after qualifying, and he is buried in a Catholic cemetery in the north of the island.
Q 23Who first spotted the odd sickle-shaped cells under a microscope in the case James Herrick reported in 1910?
His intern
Q 14Which tissue can be transplanted from a matched donor, usually a close relative, to cure sickle cell disease?
Bone marrow
Bone marrow transplants succeed in about 90% of children when the donor is a matched family member, because the donor's stem cells take over making red blood cells.
Q 15Which organ did NFL safety Ryan Clark lose after sickle cell trait caused a medical emergency during a game in Denver?
Spleen
Spleen damage struck in Denver's thin mountain air, and the Steelers then kept Clark out of every later game the team played in that city.
Q 16Which antibiotic do young children with sickle cell disease take every day to guard against life-threatening infections?
Penicillin
Penicillin is given daily, usually until the age of five, because the disease damages the organ that filters bacteria out of the blood.
Q 17In which West African country are about 150,000 babies born with sickle cell disease every year?
Nigeria
Nigeria sees about 2% of its newborns affected, and 24% of Nigerians carry a single copy of the gene, usually without any symptoms.
Q 18Which trigger of sickle cell pain crises is the reason patients are told to ease slowly into a swimming pool?
A sudden temperature swing
A sudden temperature swing can set off a crisis, so NIH advice is to ease into the water gradually and to steer clear of extreme heat and cold alike.
Q 19In babies, one of the earliest signs of sickle cell disease is painful swelling in which parts of the body?
Hands and feet
Hands and feet swell when sickled cells block the blood flow inside them, a problem doctors call dactylitis or hand-foot syndrome.
Q 20Children with sickle cell disease are given ultrasound scans of the head to check their risk of which emergency?
Stroke
Stroke risk shows up on the scan as unusually fast blood flow in the brain's arteries, and regular blood transfusions lower the danger for children whose results look worrying.
His intern, aged 27, examined the blood expecting to find a tropical infection and saw long curved cells instead, yet Herrick was the one credited with the report.
Q 24Which American chemist showed in 1949 that sickle cell anemia was a molecular disease?
Linus Pauling
Linus Pauling and his team made it the first illness ever traced to an abnormal protein, the starting point for understanding disease at the level of molecules.
Q 25Which US president signed the National Sickle Cell Anemia Control Act, funding screening and research?
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon signed it in 1972 after a White House committee that included pediatrician Yvette Francis-McBarnette, whose clinic had screened over 20,000 schoolchildren.
Q 26Which activist group offered free sickle cell testing at its community clinics in the early 1970s?
Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party volunteers tested thousands of people, part of a set of survival programs that also ran free ambulances and handed out clothing.
Q 27Which Oscar winner directed and starred in A Warm December, a 1973 romance about a woman with sickle cell disease?
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier played a widowed American doctor who falls for an African ambassador's niece on holiday, then learns that one of the men trailing her is her physician.
Q 28Which rapper, one half of the duo Mobb Deep, described his lifelong battle with sickle cell anemia in his music?
Prodigy
Prodigy wrote about the pain on his 2000 solo debut H.N.I.C., and he was in a Las Vegas hospital with complications of the illness when he died in 2017.
Q 29Paul Williams, who lived with sickle cell anemia, was an original member and choreographer of which Motown group?
The Temptations
The Temptations counted him as their best dancer, and he devised stage routines for the Supremes too before failing health forced him to retire in 1971.
Q 30People living with sickle cell disease are widely known within the community by which fighting nickname?
Warriors
Warriors is the word used by patient groups such as the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, which labels its support resources for warriors and caregivers.