The annual Royal Society Awards recognise exceptional research achievements through a series of prestigious medals and prizes. Of the 27 awards for 2024-25 , announced today, four honour Oxford University researchers for their outstanding contributions to scientific discovery, public engagement and research culture.
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said: 'The recipients of this year's medals and awards have all made outstanding contributions to science and its applications for the benefit of humanity. They have done so by furthering our understanding of the processes that govern the world around us, changing the practices of academia to build a more robust and inclusive research environment, and engaging new audiences. Celebrating these diverse contributions is core to the Society's mission and I offer my congratulations to all the 2025 recipients.'
Professor Sir Rory Collins (Oxford Population Health): awarded the Buchanan Medal for leading practice altering cardiovascular clinical trials and leading the UK Biobank .
I am delighted to receive the Buchanan Medal. This award recognises the importance of our cardiovascular clinical trials which have changed routine care worldwide and prevented many premature deaths. It also recognises the work of UK Biobank, a prospective study of 500,000 British men and women that enables scientists around the world to create better ways to diagnose, prevent and treat many different diseases.
Professor Sir Rory Collins (Oxford Population Health)
Professor Collins is an epidemiologist who studies how to prevent and treat chronic disease in large population-based studies. Notable achievements from his career include coordinating the ISIS "mega-trials" which demonstrated that low-cost, widely accessible, clot-dissolving and clot-preventing treatments could halve the risk of death during a heart attack. He was also involved in conducting the 20,000 patient Heart Protection Study which showed that lowering LDL-cholesterol with statin therapy safely reduces the risk of death and disability from cardiovascular disease among a much wider range of people than thought likely to benefit. As a consequence, statin therapy is now used extensively worldwide.
Professor Collins became the Principal Investigator and Chief Executive of UK Biobank in 2005. Involving 500,000 participants from across the UK, it is the largest deeply-characterised prospective study of disease globally, readily accessible for any type of health research that is in the public interest. Over 20,000 researchers worldwide currently use it to better understand how to prevent and treat many different diseases, generating over 5000 scientific papers in 2024 alone.
Professor Kayla King , Department of Biology: awarded the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture for contributions to the fields of evolutionary biology and genetics of infectious disease.
It is an immense privilege to have my research recognised by the Royal Society. I feel fortunate every day to be able to think about science and make new discoveries, together with my brilliant students and excellent colleagues. I am thrilled that my fields, evolutionary biology, ecology, and genetics of infectious disease, are being highlighted by this Award.
Professor Kayla King , Department of Biology
Professor King specialises in testing evolutionary theory using host-pathogen interactions. To do this, she uses a range of methods, including evolving bacterial and viral pathogens in animals (e.g., nematode worms) in the lab; using bioinformatics to identify genomic signatures of pathogen adaptation; and computationally exploring evolutionary patterns across various animal and pathogen species.
Her work has provided significant new insights into why some pathogens are more virulent or contagious than others. She has also demonstrated that rising temperatures can impact virulence, highlighting the potential impact of climate change on infectious disease transmission. Her findings have also revealed the crucial role of biodiversity in shaping pathogen virulence, showing that the loss of genetic diversity in host populations can drive disease spread and evolution. Through exploring the genomes of bacteria and viruses, her work has led to better understanding of the possible evolutionary pathways of pathogens as they adapt to new host species. This could help inform wildlife conservation and strategies to combat zoonotic diseases.
Professor Philipp Kukura , Department of Chemistry: awarded the Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture for pioneering and democratising mass photometry, a novel means of mass measurement for single biomolecules.
I am delighted to receive this honour, a recognition of the advances in life science research that are being enabled by breakthroughs in fundamental physical sciences.
Professor Philipp Kukura , Department of Chemistry
Professor Kukura develops new optical methods that allow us to understand the basis of biomolecular function and regulation. Currently, his focus is mass photometry, light-scattering-based detection, imaging, and mass measurement of single biomolecules in solution. These approaches are used to "weigh" biomolecules, by assessing them one at a time, with this information then applied to find out what they are made of and how they interact. This can help us to understand how processes in a healthy body work, and what changes in the context of disease. Ultimately, this could help design new routes to intervention.
Based in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at Oxford, a highly interdisciplinary environment across departments, disciplines and divisions, Professor Kukura fosters a strongly collaborative approach to research. His current work falls into two major categories: 1. Evolving mass photometry from a technological perspective to enable access to the full breath of biomolecular interactions. 2. Development of new assays to provide unique insight into biomolecular mechanisms.
Professor Michael Wooldridge , Department of Computer Science: awarded the Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture for award-winning work as a leading researcher, educator and commentator in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) whose popular science books, lectures and media appearances have informed millions.
I am stunned and beyond delighted to be recognised for this work by receiving the Faraday Prize and Lecture from the Royal Society. Just as I could never have imagined how far my field would come, so I could never have expected to be recognised in this way.
Professor Michael Wooldridge , Department of Computer Science
Professor Wooldridge has worked in AI for more than 35 years. He is one of founders of the field of multi-agent systems - concerned with building AI programs ("agents") that operate on our behalf, possibly working with other AI agents while doing so.
Besides a prodigious scholarly output - including 450 scientific articles - Professor Wooldridge has significantly advanced understanding of AI among the public. He has written nine books, translated ten times, including two popular science introductions to AI: the 'Ladybird Expert Guide to AI', and 'The Road to Conscious Machines.' He gives frequent public lectures on AI, including the 2023 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, and his career was profiled in the 300th edition of BBC Radio 4's 'The Life Scientific.' He has given evidence on AI to multiple government committees and in 2023 was appointed Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords inquiry on Large Language Models and Generative AI.
Further information about the awards can be found on the Royal Society website .
