Boy Who Wasn’t Short

Professor Edwin Kirk is both a clinical geneticist and a genetic pathologist, a rare combination. As a clinician, he sees patients at Sydney Children’s Hospital, where he has worked for more than 20 years; his laboratory practice is in the New South Wales Health Pathology Genomics Laboratory at Randwick.Kirk is a conjoint appointee in the School of Women’s and Children’s Health at the University of New South Wales, an experienced medical educator, and currently Chief Examiner in Genetics for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. He is also a respected researcher, working in the fields of cardiac genetics, metabolic diseases, and intellectual disability, as well as studying reproductive carrier screening, and is a co-author of more than 100 publications in scientific journals, which have been cited by other researchers more than 4,000 times. He is one of the co-leads and public faces of the $20 million Mackenzie’s Mission carrier screening project.Kirk lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. In his spare time, he competes in ocean swimming races, slowly, and plays the saxophone, loudly.

‘This is an excellent book that explores the history, ethics, patient stories, and explanations of science in a sensitive and relatable way. It is a very readable book that does not overwhelm the reader with scientific facts. It takes a complicated topic in medicine and makes genetics accessible to a wider audience.’