James has served as Vice President of Research Operations since joining Kimia in April, 2023. James has spent his career building high-performance teams for drug discovery and development at various biotech companies. James has broad expertise in drug development from small molecules, biologics, gene and cellular therapies. He received his Biology PhD from Birkbeck College, Univ. of London, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. Before Kimia, James was Vice President, R&D at a stealth biotech newco where he led the research and translational efforts for a clinical stage asset having advanced the molecule to IND. Prior to that, James spent five years co-leading oncology discovery efforts at NGM Bio, where the team successfully advanced three molecules to phase 1 studies in solid tumors. Prior to joining NGM, James spent several years leading the engineered T cell receptor (TCR) therapies group at Juno therapeutics. James has early development experience with a record of advancing molecules to IND stage (four to IND/clinical development, multiple others to candidate designation stage). He enjoys applying his research and development expertise to build new technologies and advance transformational therapeutics to the clinic.