Ian Johnston

Head Of Sequencing Operations

Ian oversees the scientific pipeline teams responsible for delivering all forms of DNA and RNA high-quality sequencing at scale for the Sanger Institute together with continuous improvement and development through optimisation and automation.

About Ian

In his role as Head of DNA Pipeline Operations and Sequencing R&D, Ian leads a team of more than 80 scientists and technical experts covering a broad range of scientific areas including sample extraction, quantification and preparation, high-throughput and bespoke library preparation, Illumina, PacBio and Oxford Nanopore sequencing platforms and primary data analysis and quality control. Ian also oversees ongoing process optimisation, automation, sample and metadata tracking and quality assurance.

Collectively, the teams Ian leads provide expertise to help realise and deliver some of the Institute’s largest and most ambitious projects.

Ian has a background in forensics and molecular biology, in particular the development of highly-optimised processes for low input assays underpinning large-scale or high-throughput data generation.