
The precise circumstances surrounding his death are not clear, but are probably related to the strain on his heart and lungs from the serious pneumonia of early this January. Yale's children wish to thank the many friends, doctors, nurses and helpers who comforted him during his six week fight against a tough disease.
Among Dad's last words to David over a long lunch were his satisfaction with having lived a good and satisfying life; having contributed to mankind through his research and leaving behind a strong and good family. He expressed no regrets and was looking forward, if possible to moving back to New York following his recovery.
Yale was born in The Bronx on December 15, 1931, the only child of Joseph Nemerson and Ciel Bandes. He grew up to be a champion tennis player and scholar at Bronx High School for Science, and even spent a semester as a tennis recruit at Tulane University before transferring to Bard College in Stratford-on-Hudson. There, while rooming with future actor Larry Hagman, he developed an interest in philosophy and psychology.
After taking time to travel and join the family real estate business, Yale decided to go to NYU medical school, first to be a psychiatrist and then, becoming curious after developing a bleeding disorder himself, he choose his life's passion, hematology. His internship at Lenox Hill Hospital and residency at Montefiore Medical Center led him in the direction of the laboratory and pure science where he would spend the next 44 years uncovering the inner workings of blood clotting and becoming one of the first great explorers of the role of tissue factor in this complex set of reactions.
Yale married Vivienne Black in 1957, raising her son, Matthew and together they had Andrea and David. He joined the Yale Medical faculty in 1964 and quickly rose to become a young full professor. His work on understanding the role and working of tissue factor in the 1960s - discovered through his work with a small heard of cows in a town near New Haven - proved to be a breakthrough that altered the way the fundamental mechanisms of blood clotting were regarded by the rest of the world.
As his research partner at Yale, and his friend and collaborator for decades afterward, Dr. William Konigsberg of Yale University has often noted, "from that time on Yale was 'Dr. Clot' for most of the world's hematologists."
In 1975 Yale and Vivienne divorced and he moved to Stony Brook University to build what he hoped would be one of the premier hematology departments in the world.
Budget cuts throughout New York State scuttled plans for the Long Island school's immediate expansion and he then moved to Mt Sinai Medical Scho

Yale married Muriel Haim, a senior pharmaceutical executive in 1993 and then chaired the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis Congress in New York that year and also chaired the society's board of directors. In 2000, this marriage also ended.
Throughout his marriages, Yale remained close to his children and his grandchildren and together they shared a set of houses in the Berkshires where they spent many holidays. He also remained close to his former wife Vivienne and her husband William Goodman.
In addition to his children, Yale is survived by his five grandchildren, two daughters in-law and one son-in-law. They are Matthew and Marian Chertow's Elana and Joy, Andrea and Kenton Hoover's Avram and Lilah and David and Cindy Freeman's Arlo.
A service for Yale Nemerson is planned for 2:00 PM Sunday, February 15, 2009 in his apartment in lower Manhattan at 145 Nassau Street, near City Hall. Contributions in Yale's name to the American Heart Association (https://donate.americanheart.org/ecommerce/donation/acknowledgement_info.jsp;jsessionid=TMBY5W0X352WYCQFCU1SCAQ?campaignId=&site=Heart&itemId=prod20007)would be a meaningful acknowledgment of a life well lived in the service of science and a better understanding of the workings of the human body or to the Metropolitan Opera (http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/support/gifts/memorial.aspx), one of Yale's great passions. Please call 203 444-6482 for more information.