Jason Skelton (United Kingdom)

A local from Cambridge I Jason joined the Sanger way back in 1993 as a DNA sequencing technician at the age of 18 and was one of the 17 original staff that moved from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge to Hinxton when the Sanger Centre was established. I’ve been involved with large scale DNA . Working as part of Sanger’s in sequencing of a number of organisms over the years including the first Eukaryotic genome to be sequenced Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and disease causing human He then went on to work in the pathogens such as Pathogen Sequencing unit (Sanger) and was involved in the sequencing and completion of the genomes of from numerous high profile species that are causative in human disease such Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Plasmodium falciparum. Although I started my scientific career in DNA sequencing, I’ve also worked in functional genomics providing DNA microarray services to the Drosphila Melanogaster Community at Cambridge University Department of Genetics and here at Sanger in a similar role for the social amoeba Dictyostelium discodium community.After a break from science to explore my love of photography I returned to Sanger working in DNA pipelines, providing services for faculty including Mass Spectrometry genotyping and long read sequencing using Pacbio, Oxford Nanopore, 10X Genomics and BioNano Optical mapping. My time working on these platforms enabled me to be involved with some very interesting projects including the Vertebrate Genome Project, 25 Genomes Project, Tree of life and the Covid-19 UK consortium.
Before joining the Anderson Group I worked in the Gene Editing Group, Cellular Operations. Providing vector construction for CRISPR and lenti-viral production services to faculty groups across the Institute.

When I’m not at work my passions include photography, visiting other countries, skiing, curling, kayaking, hiking, visiting the cinema and discovering new independent coffee shops. 

Before joining the Gene Editing team, Jason worked within the Long Read Technologies team, part of within  DNA pipelines, providing numerous services to faculty groups at Sanger. Working on Pacbio, Oxford Nanopore and 10X Genomics platforms whilst carrying out work for projects such as the 25 Genomes Project and the Tree of Life Project.