Meet the nextGEN
James Dooley - Aila Biotech
Who or what called you to lead?
My journey into leadership started with a deep-rooted desire to care for others, a calling that was shaped by my childhood experiences. Growing up in foster care, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who was a kind and caring person. She didn't just take care of me—she took care of everyone around her. Watching her selflessness made me realise early on that I wanted to follow in her footsteps and help people.
At 15, I ran away from home and started working in healthcare. My first jobs were in hospitals and nursing homes, and by my early 20s, I decided to go back to school to become either a paramedic or physician. However, my path took a major turn after I was in a serious car accident, which left me in rehab for two years. The physical toll it took on me made me question whether I could handle the intensity of working in the ER, something my mentor—who had become a close friend—strongly advised me to reconsider.
After another accident in the ER, I realized that my body simply couldn’t endure the demands of the job. So, I shifted my focus to research, with the help of that same mentor who pointed me towards a biotech research program. I was working in immunology at the time, but it wasn’t long before neurology caught my attention. Years later, I crossed into that field after meeting my co-founder, Adrian Liston, when he set up his lab in Belgium.
Adrian’s brother tragically passed away from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which deeply impacted both of us. That loss shifted our focus toward the huge unmet need for TBI treatments. We started applying the immunological research I had been working on toward neurological solutions, and what we discovered was promising. In transgenic animals, we were able to get effective immune responses in the brain. From there, we realised that with gene therapy, we might be able to translate these findings to humans and potentially save the lives of TBI patients in those critical early stages.
When Adrian moved the lab to the UK, we founded our company and have been dedicated ever since to making this a reality. As a leader, I’m driven by the desire to fill the gaps in healthcare, especially for conditions like TBI, where treatments are sorely lacking. My goal is to translate cutting-edge research into therapies that make a real difference for patients and their families.
James’ full profile is available for our members inside the community.