Bumps and bruises. Cuts and scrapes. Gashes and gouges. Injuries small and large are familiar to all of us, but what happens when part of our body’s innate healing ability is disrupted? What happens, for instance, when the blood just won’t stop flowing? In this episode, we explore one of the most common of these disruptions: the clotting disorder known as hemophilia. From the physiological nitty gritty on how blood clotting actually works to the long history, at times both tragic and triumphant, of the “royal disease”, we trace the story of hemophilia, ending with a hopeful look towards the future.
History | Biology |
Pemberton, Stephen. The Bleeding Disease: Hemophilia and the Unintended Consequences of Medical Progress. JHU Press, 2011. | Hoyer, L.W., 1994. Hemophilia A. New England Journal of Medicine, 330(1), pp.38-47. |
Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. Random House, 1967. | George, L.A., Sullivan, S.K., Giermasz, A., Rasko, J.E., Samelson-Jones, B.J., Ducore, J., Cuker, A., Sullivan, L.M., Majumdar, S., Teitel, J. and McGuinn, C.E., 2017. Hemophilia B gene therapy with a high-specific-activity factor IX variant. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(23), pp.2215-2227. |
Iorio, A., Stonebraker, J.S., Chambost, H., Makris, M., Coffin, D., Herr, C. and Germini, F., 2019. Establishing the prevalence and prevalence at birth of hemophilia in males: a meta-analytic approach using national registries. Annals of internal medicine, 171(8), pp.540-546. | |
Mannucci, P.M., 2020. Hemophilia therapy: the future has begun. Haematologica, 105(3), p.545. | |
Extras: Khan Academy: Coagulation Cascade. By Patrick van Nieuwenhuizen https://youtu.be/FNVvQ788wzk |
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