Inderjeet Dokal is Chair of Child Health at Barts and The London. He has made major advances in the field of aplastic anaemia. His work has shown that defects in two different components of the telomerase complex – dyskerin and the RNA component TERC – underlie many cases of dyskeratosis congenita. This provided a conclusive link between telomere maintenance and ageing processes in humans. His research group has become an international referral centre for patients with bone marrow failure syndromes. He is also overseeing the development of Barts and The London Children’s Hospital.