Robin W. Carrell studied medicine and chemistry in the Universities of Otago and Canterbury in New Zealand, and then biochemistry in Cambridge in England. His lifelong studies have been in molecular pathology, initially of an inherited haemolytic anaemia in Cambridge in 1965, followed by the molecular pathology of alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency in Christchurch, New Zealand, in the 1970s. He recognised then the serpin family of protease inhibitors and from 1986 pursued research on the inhibitors of coagulation as Professor of Haematology in Cambridge. Work with his group revealed the mobile flexibility of the serpins and its adaptations for a variety of functions in the blood, most recently of the pathology of angiotensinogen with particular respect to the pre-eclamptic hypertension of pregnancy. He is an FRS, FRSNZ, FMedSci and FRCP.