Jan Fredrik Simons

Dr. Simons is a pioneer in the development and applications of next generation sequencing technologies. At GigaGen he leads development of custom sequencing devices to understand immune system regulation for the purpose of drug discovery. Prior to joining GigaGen, Dr. Simons was at Quantapore, where he most recently serviced as Senior Director of R&D and was instrumental in achieving key milestones towards the company’s novel single molecule sequencing technology, including several rounds of financing. Dr. Simons has also held senior leadership positions at Genapsys, Ion Torrent, and 454 Life Sciences, where he led development and commercialization of next-generation sequencing platforms and spearheaded pioneering sequencing applications in collaboration with thought-leaders in the fields of oncology, virology and evolutionary genetics. Dr. Simons received a Ph.D. in Medical Science at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and a B.S./M.Sc. in Biochemistry at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He has over thirty peer reviewed publications including seminal publications in Nature and Science. He also has multiple granted or pending patent applications.