Ian Jones

Biography

Professor Jones graduated in Microbiology and Virology from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick. He completed a Ph.D. at Warwick with Sandy Primrose, working on plasmid stability in E. coli, and continued in plasmid genetics with an EMBO long-term fellowship with Dusko Ehrlich at the University of Paris VI. He began research in Virology when he joined George Brownlee at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford where he studied influenza. Subsequently he was a group leader at the NERC Institute of Virology, Oxford, moving to his current position as Professor at Reading in 1999. In 1998/9 he took a sabbatical leave in Dennis Burton’s group at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla. Prof. Jones’ most significant scientific achievements are his contributions to candidate vaccine for HIV; the discovery of an apparent receptor independent cell entry mechanism for the virus fusion protein gp64, and his contributions to expression system improvement. His most successful contribution to societal betterment has been as co-inventor of recombinant human factor IX, manufactured by Wyeth and marketed by Pfizer as Benefix, for the pathogen risk free treatment of haemophilia B patients. Prof. Jones teaches virology and related subjects to each of the three undergraduate years at Reading and contributes to public issues in virology upon request. He is a registered expert at the Science Media Centre. Prof. Jones advises Sentinext in matters relating to its proprietary technology platform based on insect cell/baculovirus biology.

Research Interest

microbiology and virology