Professor Inderjeet Dokal FMedSci FRS

Inderjeet Dokal graduated in Medicine from the University of Leicester (1983). He received his postgraduate clinical and research training at Hammersmith Hospital and where he was appointed Consultant in Paediatric Haematology (1995). He was promoted to Professor of Haematology at Imperial College London in 2003. In 2006, he was recruited to the Chair of Child Health and as an Honorary Consultant at Queen Mary University of London/Barts Health. He served as Centre Lead within the Blizard Institute (2006–2024). He is Fellow of The Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health (1998), Physicians (1999), Pathologists (2001), The Academy of Medical Sciences (2010) and The Royal Society (2026).

Inderjeet’s principal research interest is the pathophysiology of bone marrow failure (BMF). His research team has made seminal advances in the BMF field, including the identification of 20 disease genes and the characterization of BMF due to defective telomere maintenance. This research showed that the multi-system BMF syndrome, dyskeratosis congenita, is fundamentally due to germline variants in genes (e.g., DKC1, TERC, TERT) that are important in telomere maintenance, and that these patients have very short telomeres. Their research also showed that telomere dysfunction can lead to BMF, premature aging features, and cancer predisposition. This has influenced many fields beyond haematology, including aging research and cancer biology. The group’s research has directly improved diagnosis (through telomere length testing and genetic testing panels) and treatment (through repurposing of drugs and safer transplantation approaches).

The link between dyskeratosis congenita, BMF, leukaemia, and other disorders to defective telomere maintenance, established by Inderjeet’s group, has led to the recognition of a new category of diseases: “telomere biology disorders”.