Professor of Regenerative Medicine at Oxford, Paul Riley has established himself as an internationally renowned researcher in the field of cardiovascular developmental biology and regenerative medicine. His work established the basis of a DIY mechanism of vessel and muscle repair following myocardial infarction, and has facilitated phenotypic screening of human epicardium for drug discovery. Professor Riley has underpinned the work on regeneration with fundamental discoveries in cardiovascular development aligned to the hypothesis that adult repair is triggered by developmental re-programming. In recent years he has pioneered studies on epicardium derived-cells, establishing the paradigm of activating resident progenitor populations towards vascular and muscle-repair in the injured adult heart.