Prof Adrian Liston is CSO and founder of Aila Biotech. Prof Liston received his BSc(Hons) in biomedical sciences from Adelaide University, followed by a PhD in immunogenetics at the Australian National University studying T cell tolerance. After his doctoral studies, Prof Liston worked on regulatory T cell biology at the University of Washington, prior to starting up his independent research program together with Dr James Dooley at the VIB and University of Leuven, in Belgium.

The Liston-Dooley lab research takes a broad perspective in understanding immune regulatory processes, from fundamental to clinical immunology, across homeostasis and disease. Among the key discoveries in the laboratory that led to the formation of Aila Biotech were the identification of the molecular machinery controlling regulatory T cell apoptosis (Pierson et al, 2013 Nature Immunology), the identification of regulatory T cells in the healthy mouse and human brain (Pasciuto et al, Cell 2020), and harnessing this population to treat neuroinflammation (Yshii et al, Nature Immunology 2022). Prof Liston is currently CSO of Aila Biotech, Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, Professorial Fellow at St Catharine's College, and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.