Dr Duncan Purtill is a laboratory and clinical haematologist and medical director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Laboratory at Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Western Australia and completed most of his postgraduate training at Royal Perth Hospital. He has completed research and clinical fellowships in bone marrow transplantation, with a particular interest in cord blood transplantation, at Hôpital Saint Louis in Paris and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.