Peter Kernoff published the first description of the bleeding disorder variant von Willebrand's disease. This groundbreaking work, which appeared in 1974 when Peter was based at the Oxford Haemophilia centre, became a citation classic and helped to set in motion many studies elucidating structural, functional, and immunological relationships between factor VIII and von Willebrand factor, and the role of the latter in haemostatic/thrombotic mechanisms.

Inhibitory antibodies to factor VIII remain the biggest challenge for haemophilia treatment. It was as early as 1984, when Peter Kernoff was consultant haematologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London, that he was the lead investigator in a clinical trial using pig factor VIII to treat those patients with these antibodies. Until recently this strategy was the mainstay of treatment and there is no doubt that it saved many lives.

In 1978 he established a bank of stored serum samples from patients, taken at each clinic visit when they were treated with clotting factor …