Professor Emma Letitia Duncan

Professor Emma Duncan is Eminent Senior Staff Specialist in Endocrinology at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and Professor of Medicine at both Queensland University of Technology, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and UQ Diamantina Institute, UQ Centre for Clinical Research, University of Queensland. 

Prof. Duncan graduated in medicine with first class honours from the University of Sydney in 1992.  After moving to the UK in 1994, she undertook her doctorate studies into the genetics of osteoporosis at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford.   She returned to Australia in 2005 and moved to her position at the University of Queensland in 2010 and most recently joined Queensland University of Technology in 2016.

Since her undergraduate days, Prof Duncan has been fascinated by the skeleton.  Research in bone diseases has formed the bulk of her basic and clinical research for over two decades, and she has published multiple research papers in osteoporosis and skeletal dysplasias.  She is also interested in other heritable endocrine disorders, such as phaeochromocytomas and other endocrine tumours.    Prof Duncan has broad practical experience in gene mapping, including genetic epidemiology, linkage, and genome-wide association studies; and more recently has played a strong role in gene discovery using massively parallel (“next-generation”) sequencing.

In addition to her genetic research, Prof Duncan also contributes to clinical research in endocrinology and obstetric medicine. She is particularly interested in translating the genetic revolution into clinical practice.