• Question: do you do anything to do with haemophilia?

    Asked by to Heather, Rebecca, Dave, Ben on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rebecca Gladstone

      Rebecca Gladstone answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      I am afraid I don’t work on haemophilia. I study diseases that can be passed from person to person via a micro-organism but there are also disorders that are passed down in a family as part of their DNA, haemophilia is a genetic disorder which is passed on in the DNA in a family.
      There are so many different types of disease that we can study to help improve medicine and so much to learn that most of us have to choose just one thing to know really well, better than anyone else and become an expert. There is a phrase that says that an expert knows alot about very little (just the one thing we focus on) and not alot about everything else!

    • Photo: Heather Ritchie

      Heather Ritchie answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Sorry but I also don’t work on haemophilia and only have a basic knowledge of the condition. I’ve never worked on anything in medical sciences as I’ve always found biological and ecological sciences more appealing but it takes all sorts of scientists in all sorts of fields to make the advancements that we have as a scientific community.

    • Photo: Dave Baker

      Dave Baker answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Sorry this is an area I’m not familiar with. Good luck with finding out more.

    • Photo: Ben White

      Ben White answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      Some of the work me and Dave do for other Scientists has to be kept a secret, so that no one can steal their ideas and get credit before they finish their experiment. So we may or may not have been involved in this side of things.

      If you’d like to know about the genetics behind hemophilia, see http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/hemophilia
      We know an awful lot now compared to 50 years ago, and scientists are trying new things like gene therapy (replacing faculty gene in our genome) to try and find new ways to cure and treat people suffering from hemophilia.

Comments

  • Photo: Ditte

    Ditte commented on :

    Unfortunately I don’t work with hemophilia either, but did you know that there is viruses which may cause the same symptoms as hemophilia? The condition is called viral hemorrhagic fever and are caused by viruses such as Dengue, Ebola, Lassa fever and Yellow fever. Infection with on these viruses may cause the blood vessels to leak and the person will start bleeding all over the body. Luckily some of these viruses are extremely rare and in the case of yellow fever there is actually an vaccination that everyone should consider having before going on holiday outside EU.