Peter Collins is Professor of Histopathology and Morbid Anatomy at the University of Cambridge. He is a highly innovative neuro-pathologist who has led the field of molecular profiling of glial tumours. His work has permitted classification of previously confused identities amongst these tumours and has demonstrated that carcinogenesis in the glial lineage consistently requires deficiency at some point in each of the RB and p53 pathways.

He has developed an ethically-sound tissue banking system that permits research access to human tissues whilst respecting the wishes of patients and their relatives, and is using this to exploit the information deriving from the human genome project in the analysis of CNS neoplasia, and the identification of new tumour-related genes.