Sir Rory Collins awarded the MRC Millennium Medal 2020

Professor Sir Rory Collins, Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health, and Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank, has been awarded the Medical Research Council (MCR) Millennium Medal 2020, the MRC's most prestigious personal award. Professor Sir Rory Collins is being honoured for his transformative national and international contributions to both cardiovascular disease and UK Biobank, including his discoveries showing that statins safely reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes in a wide range of individuals, which have saved millions of lives worldwide. As the latest recipient of the MRC Millennium Medal, Professor Sir Rory Collins joins an elite group of men and women, including Sir Peter Mansfield, Professor Janet Darbyshire and Professor Sir Philip Cohen, for their exceptional contributions to medical research. Sir Rory will deliver a lecture and will be presented with the Medal commissioned from the Royal Mint at an awards ceremony in Spring 2021. Professor Fiona Watt, MRC Executive Chair, comments 'Rory Collins is one of the UK's foremost clinician scientists. His national and international contributions to investigating the causes, prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease and his visionary leadership of UK Biobank have been remarkable. The MRC is delighted to recognise Rory's achievements by awarding him the MRC Millennium Medal 2020.' Professor Sir Rory Collins comments '2020 is the year when the importance of medical research - from basic science at the level of the molecule to epidemiology on a global scale - for everyone in every country has become clear.