Professor Sir Rory Collins
Colleges
Websites
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UK Biobank
Principal Investigator and Chief Execuitve
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British Heart Foundation
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Rory Collins
FMedSci, FRCP
Head of Nuffield Department of Population Health and BHF Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Rory Collins studied Medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London University (1974-1980), and Statistics at George Washington University (1976-7) and at Oxford University (1982-3).
In 1985 he became co-director, with Professor Sir Richard Peto, of the University of Oxford's Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU). In 1996, he was appointed Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Oxford, supported by the British Heart Foundation.
He became Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of the UK Biobank prospective study of 500,000 people in September 2005. From July 2013, he became the Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health at Oxford University.
His work has been in the establishment of large-scale epidemiological studies of the causes, prevention and treatment of heart attacks, other vascular disease, and cancer. He was knighted in 2011 for his services to science.
Key publications
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Efficacy and safety of cholesterol-lowering treatment: prospective meta-analysis of data from 90,056 participants in 14 randomised trials of statins.
Journal article
Baigent C. et al, (2005), Lancet, 366, 1267 - 1278
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Collaborative meta-analysis of randomised trials of antiplatelet therapy for prevention of death, myocardial infarction, and stroke in high risk patients.
Journal article
Antithrombotic Trialists' Collaboration None., (2002), BMJ, 324, 71 - 86
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MRC/BHF Heart Protection Study of cholesterol lowering with simvastatin in 20,536 high-risk individuals: a randomised placebo-controlled trial.
Journal article
Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group None., (2002), Lancet, 360, 7 - 22
Recent publications
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Causal Relevance of Lp(a) for Coronary Heart Disease and Stroke Types in East Asian and European Ancestry Populations: A Mendelian Randomization Study.
Journal article
Clarke R. et al, (2025), Circulation
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Associations Between Snoring, Body Mass Index and Coronary Artery Diseases: Observational and Mendelian Randomization Study in Asia.
Journal article
Zhu Y. et al, (2025), Respirology, 30, 346 - 358
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Effects of aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids on age-related macular degeneration in ASCEND-Eye: a randomised placebo-controlled trial in a population with diabetes.
Journal article
Sammons E. et al, (2025), BMJ Open, 15
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Comparative analysis of the Mexico City Prospective Study and the UK Biobank identifies ancestry-specific effects on clonal hematopoiesis.
Journal article
Wen S. et al, (2025), Nat Genet
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UK Biobank-A Unique Resource for Discovery and Translation Research on Genetics and Neurologic Disease.
Journal article
Taylor H. et al, (2025), Neurol Genet, 11