Roy Taylor qualified in medicine in Edinburgh, and is Professor at Newcastle University. He founded the Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre in 2006 to develop innovative research techniques. In 2011 he showed that type 2 diabetes was a simple, reversible condition of excess fat within liver and pancreas. Subsequent he has clarified how type 2 diabetes develops. This has led to practical application in the NHS with the NHS remission programme now well underway. Between 1986 and 2000, Professor Taylor developed the system for screening for diabetic eye disease, with major reduction in blindness due to diabetes across the UK.