Professor Scott is a Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Cardiovascular Medicine at Imperial College London, UK.
He qualified in medicine at the Royal London Hospital in 1971, was a Chief of Academic Medicine and of NHS clinical service, and a Chief of Cardiology and Head of Molecular Medicine at The Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, UK. He was founder and first Head of the Institute of Genetics and Genomics and founder of the Bioinformatics Centre at Imperial College London.
He is a Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians London, a founder member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, a Chartered Biologist and Fellow of the Institute of Biology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (The UK National Academy of Sciences). He received prizes from The Royal College of Physicians London, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Bristol Myers Squibb.
James authored over 240 published chapters, articles and abstracts and is most recognized for his discovery of common genetic variation causing dyslipidaemia, heart disease and obesity, and the novel mechanism of nucleic acid editing, a process concerned with cholesterol transport, antibody formation, protection against HIV and stem cell programming.