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John Cairns/Oxford University
Professor Sir Rory Collins has been awarded the Royal Society’s Buchanan Medal for leading practice-altering cardiovascular clinical trials and leading UK Biobank.
The Buchanan Medal is awarded for distinguished contributions to the biomedical sciences. The award was created from a fund to the memory of the physician George Buchanan FRS, former Chief Medical Officer of the UK, and was first awarded in 1897.
Professor Collins is an epidemiologist who studies how to prevent and treat chronic disease in large population-based studies. Notable achievements from his career include coordinating the ISIS “mega-trials” which demonstrated that low-cost, widely accessible, clot-dissolving and clot-preventing treatments could halve the risk of death during a heart attack.
He was also involved in conducting the 20,000 patient Heart Protection Study which showed that lowering LDL-cholesterol with statin therapy safely reduces the risk of death and disability from cardiovascular disease among a much wider range of people than thought likely to benefit. As a consequence, statin therapy is now used extensively worldwide.
Professor Collins became the Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank in 2005. Involving 500,000 participants from across the UK, it is the largest deeply-characterised prospective study of disease globally, readily accessible for any type of health research that is in the public interest. Over 20,000 researchers worldwide currently use it to better understand how to prevent and treat many different diseases, generating over 5,000 scientific papers in 2024 alone.
Professor Sir Rory Collins said ‘I am delighted to receive the Buchanan Medal. This award recognises the importance of our cardiovascular clinical trials which have changed routine care worldwide and prevented many premature deaths. It also recognises the work of UK Biobank, a prospective study of 500,000 British men and women that enables scientists around the world to create better ways to diagnose, prevent and treat many different diseases. None of this would have been possible without the extraordinarily altruistic participants in our studies and the incredible teams who make exceptional science happen.’
Professor Collins is among 27 Royal Society medal and award winners announced today for their outstanding contributions to scientific discovery, public engagement and research culture, and one of four from the University of Oxford.
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said ‘The recipients of this year’s medals and awards have all made outstanding contributions to science and its applications for the benefit of humanity. They have done so by furthering our understanding of the processes that govern the world around us, changing the practices of academia to build a more robust and inclusive research environment, and engaging new audiences. Celebrating these diverse contributions is core to the Society’s mission and I offer my congratulations to all the 2025 recipients.’
The Royal Society is a self-governing fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.