Professor Sir Peter Donnelly is a Founder and CEO of Genomics plc and Emeritus Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford where he was Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics from 2007-2017.
Peter played central roles in the major national and international human genetics projects of the last 20 years, including the International HapMap project and the landmark Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC) which he led, along with its successor WTCCC2, a large international collaboration studying the genetic basis of more than 20 common human diseases and conditions in over 60,000 people. He also led the genotyping of UK Biobank. Peter’s group is responsible for many widely-used statistical analysis tools for genomic data, and have made important contributions to our understanding of meiosis and of human population history.
In 2014, along with three colleagues, Peter founded Genomics plc, becoming the company’s CEO in 2017. The company uses large-scale genetic data to identify novel drug targets and understand individual risk for common human diseases in order to drive a prevention-first approach to healthcare.
Peter has received numerous awards for his research, including a knighthood in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to the understanding of human genetics in disease. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Academy of Medical Sciences.