Jim Johnston

Jim was co-founder and CEO/CSO of Kalthera Inc, prior to the merger with ImmPACT Bio. He was most recently Vice President of Research at A2 Biotherapeutics, focused on T-cell and Treg bioengineering therapy. Previously, Jim was Executive Director of Research, and Global Head of Inflammation at Amgen with responsibility for Inflammation and part of Immuno-Oncology (2011–2018), where his team was responsible for ten drug candidates that progressed to FIH, five of which are advancing through clinical trials and two now approved. Prior to Amgen, Jim was a Professor of Immunology at Queen’s University Belfast, from 2002 to 2011, and was previously a Director at DNAX Research Institute. He made several key discoveries, including the identification and characterization of JAK3 and work that outlined its importance in IL-2 family signaling and in autosomal SCID patients, as well as many mechanisms controlling T-cell biology and cytokine signaling. He has been awarded the Most Valuable Scientist award at the BRMP, NIH (1996), the Hajime Award at DNAX Research Institute (1999), and the Irish Society of Immunology RDS Public Lecture Award (2010). He founded and was Chief Scientist at Fusion Antibodies Ltd, which develops humanized antibody therapeutics (www.fusionantibodies.com). Jim has a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester and was a Postdoctoral fellow, and later a Sr. Staff Fellow with Dr. John O’Shea at NIAMS, at the NIH. He has 16 patents and has authored more than 130 peer-reviewed manuscripts.