Dr Roberts, a Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, was born in Four Oaks and grew up in Sanford. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from UNC-Chapel Hill, joined the faculty in 1962 and has served as chief of the division of hematology and director of the UNC-Chapel Hill Comprehensive Hemophilia Diagnostic and Treatment Center. He was also the founding director of the school's Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, which conducts research on blood clotting disorders related to cardiovascular disease and on bleeding disorders such as hemophilia. He has served on the editorial boards of Current Opinion in Hematology and Hematologic Pathology, as well as being senior associate editor of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

Excellence in laboratory research and patient care earned Dr. Roberts numerous awards: the French International Prize for Research on Hemophilia, the National Hemophilia Foundation's Kenneth M. Brinkhous Award for Excellence in Clinical Research, and the Robert P. Grant Medal, the highest honor given by the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis. The citation accompanying this award lauded him as "one of the pioneers in the field of coagulation as well as being a leader in the Chapel Hill group which has brought so much to our present understanding of the subtleties in the mechanisms of coagulation. His contributions to our field have had a major impact, especially his outstanding work on the genetic basis of hemophilia."

In spring of 2000, Dr. Roberts received the UNC Medical Alumni Association's Distinguished Faculty Award and an honorary doctor of medicine degree from Lund University in Sweden.

Daniel Carrizosa, MD, Consultant Hematologist, Division of Hematology/Oncology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill North Carolina, USA.

Alice Ma, MD, Division of Hematology/Oncology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill North Carolina, USA.