Professor Rory Collins, Chief Executive Officer & Principal Investigator: Rory Collins was
appointed Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank in September 2005. Previously he had been contributing to the study design as a member of the Central England
Regional Collaborating Centre. In 1985 Rory 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. 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, while also being closely involved in developing
approaches to the combination of results from related studies (“meta-analyses”). CTSU was awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in
2006 for its research contributions to public health. Rory qualified in medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1981 and obtained BSc in
statistics from George Washington University, Washington DC in 1977 and MSc in statistics from the University of Oxford in 1983. In 1981 he joined the CTSU, under Professor Richard
Peto, and the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, under Professor Peter Sleight, primarily to coordinate large-scale clinical trials of the treatment of heart attacks with
Professor Salim Yusuf.
Dr Tim Peakman, Executive Director: Tim Peakman is Executive Director for UK Biobank and has overall responsibility for the day-to-day running of the organisation. Tim started work at UK Biobank in April 2004 as the Director of Operations. With ten years experience as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry and four as a management consultant in drug discovery, Tim brings a wide knowledge and experience to UK Biobank. As a consultant, at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he advised pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on a variety of projects addressing productivity of early drug discovery pipelines. He has published extensively on transferring industrialisation process and methodology from other industries and on implementing supply chain disciplines to the biomedical environment. UK Biobank has been built on these principles of industrialisation. In the pharmaceutical industry, Tim worked on humanising monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of HIV and autoimmune disease. Later his research focused on the molecular events leading to epilepsy and pain. He completed his doctoral studies on bacterial anaerobic gene regulation at the University of Birmingham in 1988 and his MBA at Henley Management College. Tim is an advisor to the Ontario Health Study, The American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study, the Helmholtz (German) Biobank and the Healing Foundation's Cleft Lip and palette initiative. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Genomic Epidemiology at the University of Manchester.
Dr
Tim Sprosen, Chief Scientific Officer: Tim Sprosen has been
Chief Scientific Officer for UK Biobank since August 2004. His responsibilities include the integration and delivery of the scientific activities and clinical operations at UK Biobank. He is also vice-chair of the North West Research Ethics Committee and chair of the governing body of his local primary school in Nottingham. Before joining UK Biobank, he was director of product development and acting director of clinical operations for Health Decisions Limited in Oxford . Tim has also worked as associate director of clinical development for Baxter Healthcare at their European headquarters in Brussels; and as the first clinical trials manager at the Medical Research Council (MRC) headquarters. He has led two US West-coast start-ups to successful first meetings with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tim is also an invited trainer in the area of innovation/lateral thinking and the management of virtual teams. Tim received his BSc in pharmacology from the University of Dundee in 1987 and his MPhil/DPhil from the University of Cambridge in 1990. His post-doctoral research in central nervous system (CNS) electrophysiological studies was undertaken in Cambridge and Oxford . Tim may be the youngest particiant in UK Biobank, having participated on his 40th birthday!
Paul Downey, Director of Operations: Paul joined UK Biobank in 2004 as Director of Operations and has led the design, implementation and ongoing management of the clinical and laboratory operations since then. He is responsible for the planning and roll out of UK Biobank’s 30 assessment centres in towns and cities around the UK, and the shipping and storage of biological samples to purpose built archive facilities in Stockport. This involves the processing of samples from about 700 participants daily into 20,000 aliquots to be stored for the next 30 years in temperatures down to -196°C. The team led by Paul has had to overcome a number of technical problems, including developing a -80C automated storage and retrieval system for 10,000,000 biological sample aliquots. Paul introduced Total Quality Management to the organisation, leading to the successful ISO 9001:2000 accreditation in 2007. He has also fostered strategic partnerships with organisations to develop the technologies required to meet the unique challenges presented by the UK Biobank project. A number of these innovations have been successfully commercialised. The automated laboratory processing systems won the 2008 North West Innovation in Engineering Award, and the archive facility was also a finalist in the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2008 MacRobert Award for innovation. Paul graduated in 1998 with an honours degree in Biological Sciences jointly awarded by the University of Lancaster and University of Florida. He attained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) by the University of Leicester in 2008, and is undertaking an MSc in Major Programme Management at the University of Oxford. Paul is Chief Executive of a biotechnology spin out company from the University of Manchester, and acts as an advisor to a number of commercial and academic institutions.