Tom Meade received his medical training at Christ Church, Oxford and then at Barts, qualifying in 1960. After a year working on aspects of leprosy in South India, he became Director of the Medical Research Council's Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit in 1970.

His personal interest was the thrombotic component of coronary heart disease (CHD), for which he was elected FRS in 1996. At Northwick Park and Barts he was physician in charge of the thrombosis clinic. On his retirement from the MRC in 2001, he moved as Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Tom was co-author of an overview of trials of aspirin in the primary prevention of CHD, showing that low-doses of aspirin (75 milligrams daily) is as effective as higher doses with a lower risk of bleeding. The results of his and other trials of aspirin have also shown that it is valuable in reducing the incidence, metastasis and mortality of several cancers, principally of the large bowel.

Professor Tom Meade FMedSci FRS died on 24 October 2022.