James Brooks is Science Editor at the Progress Educational Trust (PET) and at its free weekly email news digest, commentary service and website BioNews. Together with his fellow BioNews editors Antony Blackburn-Starza and Dr Rebecca Hill, and PET's Founding Chair of Trustees Professor Marcus Pembrey, he runs the BioNews internship scheme which provides practical science writing training and experience for PhD students. He is also a freelance journalist specialising in science and health and he has written for the Guardian newspaper and the British Medical Journal, as well as working at Executive Grapevine as a reporter for Grapevine magazine.

Previously, James studied Pharmacology at King's College London and went on to obtain an MA in Science Journalism from City University London, where he received a Commendation for 'Most Creative Graduate'. He took an extramural year at the Institut Gustave-Roussy, one of the world's leading cancer research institutes and the biggest health centre dedicated to oncology in Europe, where his research focused on DNA topoisomerases. He also spent seven years in Paris working at Euromedica and CTPartners, as a headhunter for the pharmaceutical industry. He has a particular interest in neuroscience and psychiatry, and he blogs at My Last Nerve.