NJIT author to speak at UNC about hemophilia

NJIT Associate Professor Stephen Pemberton has been invited to speak at the Bullitt History of Medicine Club at the University of North Carolina (UNC) about how hemophilia became manageable in the 20th century. Pemberton is the author of The Bleeding Disease: Hemophilia and the Unintended Consequences of Medical Progress (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). He is also an expert on hemophilia and the medical developments of the 20th-century that transformed the illness from an obscure hereditary malady into a manageable bleeding disorder. He teaches in the Federated Dept. of History at NJIT and Rutgers-Newark.

The talk, set for tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. in the UNC Health Science Library (Room 527), is free and open to the public. To attend, call 919-962-0500 or visit the Bullitt History of Medicine Club, http://www.med.unc.edu/bhomc/.

Pemberton's lecture will focus on pioneering medicine at UNC and highlight early research into hemophilia there. Eventually this work led to the establishment of the UNC Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center, recognized by the World Federation of Hemophilia as an International Hemophilia Training Center. In addition to Pemberton's continued research on the problems associated with the historical management of chronic diseases, he is investigating the role of hematologists in the development of modem genetic medicine. He is interested in the cultural, social and health implications of blood as a commodity.

Pemberton was co-recipient of the 2006 Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division book award in the history of science category. He received an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Memphis and an M.A. & Ph.D. in the History of Science University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provided by New Jersey Institute of Technology