Dr. Peter Kernoff, a leading hematologist and researcher in the United Kingdom (UK), died at the age of 61 on February 27, 2006. He was also a prolific author of more than 150 research papers, including one that identified a variant form of VWD. In the 1970s and 1980s he treated patients with hemophilia, von Willebrand disease (VWD) and factor XI deficiency.

In the early 1970s, Kernoff was a clinical research fellow at the Oxford Haemophilia Centre. He then joined the Leeds General Infirmary and School of Medicine as a physician and professor from 1974-1977. After a stint as assistant professor of medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, Kernoff went to the The Royal Free Haemophilia Centre in London. He eventually became the center’s director and the first physician in Europe to treat hemophilia patients with recombinant factor products. He was one of the first doctors to use computer technology in his practice, keeping patient records and creating a bank of serum samples of patients who were treated with clotting factor concentrates. This system subsequently became crucial for tracking HIV infections in the UK hemophilia population in the 1980s.

Kernoff also served on committees for the Central Blood Laboratories Authority, the World Federation of Hemophilia and the UK Haemophilia Society. In 1991, he suffered brain damage and paralysis as a result of a severe heart attack.

Source: The Guardian (London), April 19, 2006