James Smith, PhD is an adjunct faculty at the J. Craig Venter Institute. He focuses on biological risks from new and future technologies, and his previous experience spans industry, academic and policy roles. He has recently held positions at think tanks focused on biosecurity, as a senior fellow at the Center for Long Term Resilience and a Research Fellow at RAND. Prior to this, he was the head of global strategy for Alvea, a vaccine company that completed a phase 1 clinical trial for an omicron targeted pDNA vaccine, where he led regulatory, quality, and some aspects of product development. Dr. Smith previously led a portfolio of consultancy work focused on early stage healthcare assets for research institutes, start-ups, large companies, and other stakeholders.

Dr. Smith holds an undergraduate degree (biological sciences) and UK Medical Research Council funded doctoral degree (medical sciences) from the University of Oxford. He was also a postdoctoral scientist and senior postdoctoral scientist at the University of Oxford, in the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences and the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, a Fellow of Reproducible Research Oxford, and a SENS Research Foundation Scholar at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Publications