History
vWF is named after Dr. Erik von Willebrand (1870–1949), a Finnish doctor who in 1924 first described a hereditary bleeding disorder in families from the Åland islands, who had a tendency for cutaneous and mucosal bleeding, including menorrhagia. Although von Willebrand could not identify the definite cause, he distinguished von Willebrand disease (vWD) from hemophilia and other forms of bleeding diathesis.
In the 1950s, vWD was shown to be caused by a plasma factor deficiency (instead of being caused by platelet disorders), and, in the 1970s, the vWF protein was purified.
Read more about this topic: Von Willebrand Factor
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