UK Biobank CEO selected for TIME100 2024 Health list

UK Biobank’s CEO and Principal Investigator Professor Sir Rory Collins has been selected to feature in the inaugural TIME100 2024 Health list. This special issue of TIME magazine recognises the 100 most influential and innovative people in health this year from around the world. Appearing in this list alongside 99 other world leaders in health demonstrates the extraordinary impact of UK Biobank, which is led by Professor Collins, alongside his role as Head of Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford. 

On the announcement of this news, Professor Rory Collins, CEO and Principal Investigator of UK Biobank, said:  

"It has been a privilege to guide UK Biobank over the last two decades as it has grown into a vital piece of the puzzle to improve public health. This accolade should really go to all 500,000 of UK Biobank’s incredible participants, without whom this one-of-a kind research resource would not exist. TIME’s recognition reflects the enormous collective effort of the extraordinary teams at UK Biobank and Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Population Health who, alongside others who appear in this first ever TIME100 2024 Health list, are helping to shape a better future for the health of people everywhere."

Professor Rory Collins

Professor Collins took up the role of UK Biobank’s CEO and Principal Investigator in September 2005, and in the past 19 years at the helm of the charity, UK Biobank has gone from strength to strength, recently described as “one of the jewels in the crown of UK science” by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.  

He has specialised in the establishment of large-scale epidemiological studies of the causes, prevention and treatment of heart attacks, other vascular disease, and cancer. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society and was knighted in 2011 for his services to science. 

Speaking to TIME’s Tara Law about UK Biobank, Professor Collins shares how he feels “fantastically lucky to be given the opportunity to work on this project”. Speaking highly of the “transformational” nature of the UK Biobank dataset, Professor Collins explains: “That’s why there are so many people using it—because there is this very rich data that is readily available for them to apply their imaginations”. 

The full interview with Professor Collins can be read here.