Bleeding Out: The Curse and Cure of Haemophilia

The ultimate outcome of our project will be a book, Bleeding Out: The Curse and Cure of Haemophilia. As mentioned above, a Brocher Foundation residency will help us complete a first draft by the end 2023, with publication possible before the end of 2024.

While working on the book, we will rehearse its contents in articles written for academic journals, popular magazines, and the news media. After the release of Bleeding Out, we will continue to publish material drawn from it in order to market the book and promote our views. This is precisely how we proceeded with our 2021 title, Flesh Made New, which has generated numerous articles, extracts, and opinion pieces.

The publication of a book and its by-products are concrete outcomes. Less concrete, though no less important, is our underlying goal: to raising public awareness about the history of haemophilia and the nature of medical science more generally. Book sales, literary awards, reviews, citations etc will provide some indication of our success in this area.

In this connection, we should mention that Bleeding Out is sure to bring many opportunities for public engagement. This was certainly true of our 2021 book. Following the publication of Flesh Made New, John Rasko was frequently interviewed on Australian radio about the book and its subject matter, the history of stem cells. He also gave public lectures, joined expert panels, spoke on podcasts, and took part in events such as the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. We expect that our new book will provided the same sorts of opportunities.

Conversely, John’s activity as a science communicator often in the public eye feeds into the books we write. Most notably, in 2018, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation invited him to deliver the renowned Boyer Lectures. In this series of television and radio talks, entitled Life Re-engineered, John (with Carl Power’s assistance) explored the power and dangers of biotechnology, including gene and stem cell therapy. This allowed us to develop ideas both for Flesh Made New and our new project, Bleeding Out.

The Promise of Prometheus: The Past and Future of Regeneration Research

Carl Power studied arts/communication at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the history of philosophy at the University of Sydney. He received a PhD for his work on the social theories of Henri Bergson (1859-41), a French philosopher better known for his views on time and evolution. Carl is employed by the Centenary Institute where he researches and writes about regenerative medicine—its history, potential applications and ethical significance—in partnership with John Rasko. They are currently working on a grand project: a book that will offer a brief, wide-ranging, accessible and hopefully entertaining history of regeneration science and medicine. While most of their published work has been written for clinicians, the book will address a general audience. Their aim is to influence the public debates surrounding this exciting and sometimes controversial field of medical science.