 I am John Morioki, a postdoctoral research fellow based at the Cambry Welcome Trust research program in Kenya. My area of research is nutrition and infection. I mainly focus on ion deficiency and infection. I previously showed that ion deficiency affects one in two African children. Infections are a major cause of hospital admissions and death in African children. The interaction between ion and severe infection is complex and possibly bidirectional. For example, pathogens require ion to grow and multiply and ion is an important component of immunity against pathogens. Ion deficiency is treated using ion supplements. However, there are safety concerns regarding giving ion to patients, especially in populations where infections are incident. This is because some studies show that ion supplementation increases the risk of infection. In a paradigm shifting study, we asked the opposite question, that is whether infection itself causes ion deficiency. To answer this question, we used a novel innovative approach called medirian radicalization, which is a natural experiment that uses genetic variations that are randomly allocated at conception to proxy modifiable environmental factors. In our study, we used sickle cell trait as a genetic variation. Sickle cell trait is known to protect against malaria. If malaria causes ion deficiency, then individuals carrying sickle cell trait who are protected against malaria are also likely to be protected against ion deficiency. That is what we found. Overall, an intervention that prevents malaria by half would also reduce ion deficiency by half. Thereby, killing two birds using one stone. Although ion deficiency has been associated with infection or poor clinical outcome, we still do not know whether it is ion itself or the improved ion status that is associated with infection. To answer the question, I am applying medirian radicalization in two steps. The first step involves conducting the first genome-wide association study of ion status in African children to identify genetic variants that are associated with ion status in this population. So far, I have identified novel African-specific mutations that are associated with ion status or ion deficiency in African children. The second step will be to identify the genetic mutations in large-case control studies of severe malaria, tuberculosis and bacteria to determine whether genetic variation in ion status also influences risk of infection. Our study on malaria-causing ion deficiency is an important finding and has major clinical or public health implications in that it highlights a shifting in thinking away from the safety concerns of ion supplements to malaria control to prevent ion deficiency. Our genetics work also provides some evidence linking ion deficiency and vitamin A deficiency such that if you are vitamin A deficient, you are also likely to be ion deficient. However, we need studies to show the effectiveness of simultaneous supplementation of ion and vitamin A in comparison to ion supplementation alone. Afrika is home for high genetic and environmental diversity and there are novel variations that are only seen in African population. However, Africans are still underrepresented in a grobo-genomic databases. Our work on the genetics of ion status, we have identified novel African-specific variations that are shared with ion status in African population.