Rory Collins is an epidemiologist who studies how to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease. He trained in Medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London University, and Statistics at George Washington University and Oxford University. He joined Oxford University in 1981 to run large randomised trials, which showed that prompt treatment of heart attacks with clot-dissolving and clot-preventing treatment could more than halve mortality. Subsequently, he showed that lowering LDL-cholesterol safely reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and lowering it more intensively is even better. These treatments have become part of routine care. Rory was appointed British Heart Foundation Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at Oxford University in 1996, Principal Investigator of the UK Biobank prospective study of 500,000 people in 2005, and Head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health in 2013. He was knighted for services to Science in 2011 and was elected to the Royal Society in 2015.