Professor Paul James epitomises the model of a clinician–scientist. He provides cutting edge clinical services to individual and their families, informed by his own and others’ research. He is a compassionate and effective physician, an innovative and skilled researcher and a teacher and mentor who inspires the next generation of multidisciplinary clinicians and scientists to achieve greatness. He is a very effective collaborator who, through his initiatives and international collaborations, has brought about significant changes in clinical practice and policy in heritable cancer investigation, diagnosis and management.