Professor Sir John Savill, a clinician scientist from Edinburgh, is Chief Executive and Deputy Chair of the Medical Research Council (MRC). Since 2002, Professor Sir John has been First Vice Principal and Head of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he retains an ongoing involvement in research.

Previously, Professor Sir John was Chief Scientist for the Scottish Government Health Directorates. He was knighted in the 2008 New Year’s Honours List for services to clinical science. He is a past Chair of Medicine at the University of Nottingham and Professor of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he was the first Director of the University of Edinburgh/MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, directing a group interested in the molecular cell biology of renal inflammation.

Professor Sir John holds a medical degree from the University of Sheffield and a PhD from the University of London. After junior hospital appointments in Sheffield, Nottingham, and London, he spent seven years in the Department of Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital with spells as an MRC clinical training fellow and a Wellcome Trust senior clinical research fellow.