Peter Sasieni, Director of Clinical Trials Unit at King’s College London, is an outstanding biostatistician and epidemiologist whose work on cervical screening and human papillomavirus infection has transformed cervical cancer control internationally. He showed that cervical screening was ineffective in very young women and that screening intervals could be safely extended in older women. He collaborated on the first systematic reviews of HPV testing and was one of the first to call for cervical screening to be based on primary HPV testing. He is currently a lead investigator on the first randomised controlled trial of a multi-cancer early detection test in population screening which is setting new standards in speed of recruitment and socio-economic diversity of participants. As Chair of the NCRI’s Screening, Prevention and Early Diagnosis Group he provides leadership in the UK and his expertise is sought internationally.