James is from Leicestershire, United Kingdom and obtained a master’s degree in Chemistry at the University of York in 2017, with a year in industry at the pharmaceutical company Redx Pharma. Following this, he started his doctoral studies at the same institute under the supervision of Profs. Duhme-Klair and Wilson, investigating bio-orthgonal catalysis for the activation of antibiotic prodrugs. After defending his PhD thesis in December 2021, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Chimie ParisTech, France under the supervision of Prof. Gilles Gasser working on novel radionuclide chelators and osmium conjugates for photodynamic therapy. In October 2024, James started his second postdoctoral position with Prof. Holland, researching novel approaches to radionuclide coordination and their bio-conjugation to targeting proteins.