Colin Baigent is Director of the MRC Population Health Research Unit at Oxford and is internationally recognised for his expertise in clinical trial design, governance, interpretation of evidence, and in data synthesis. He was the first to establish the intellectual and operational infrastructure for large-scale randomized trials in chronic kidney disease, and his 9000-patient SHARP trial changed all the major lipid and renal guidelines internationally. As an MRC Unit Director, Professor Baigent has championed many areas of population health science that are pivotal to exploring disease aetiology and has trained research leaders from a range of disciplines to address this challenge.