Ron Dirks is a molecular biologist and CEO of Future Genomics Technologies B.V. In 2008, Ron joined ZF-screens B.V., where he was managing director and together with his colleagues developed zebrafish-based screening pipelines for pharmaceutical drugs, worked on artificial reproduction of European eel, and developed new genomics solutions based on second and third generation sequencing platforms. During his academic career at Radboud University and University of Wisconsin, Ron worked on regulation of expression of cancer genes, embryonic development of the vertebrate eye, molecular regulation of the cellular stress response and developing transgenic animal models. In 2017, the genomics activities of ZF-screens moved to Future Genomics Technologies. Ron contributed to more than 90 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Hans Jansen is an experienced molecular biologist who has worked on different topics such as gene promoters, plant embryogenesis, and early animal embryonic development. On that last topic he obtained his PhD at Leiden University in 2009. He joined ZF-screens in 2007 where he managed general lab affairs and introduced nanopore sequencing technology in 2014. At ZF-screens he started to do the bioinformatics analysis of the genomics projects. He joined Future Genomics Technologies when it was founded in 2017. At Future Genomics Technologies he is responsible for the bioinformatics analysis of all projects and keeps a close watch on new developments in the genomics field, both on the wetlab side as well as the bioinformatics side.
Wouter Veneman joined Future Genomics Technologies in January 2019 as a scientist. He started his career in medical microbiology, but gradually moved towards molecular biology. He obtained his PhD in molecular cell biology from Leiden University, where he focused on immunology, cell signalling and laboratory automation. He developed with colleagues a high-throughput screening platform for infectious diseases and cancer research using zebrafish larvae, in combination with in-depth marker gene discovery. As a Post-doc, he applied these screening platforms for toxicology and metabolic research questions. Wouter is responsible for method and protocol development in the field of Nextgen sequencing, in particular cutting-edge ONT long read sequencing.
Jane Segobola joined Future Genomics Technologies in December 2021 as a scientist and is responsible for execution of the planned projects. As part of her role, she also develops and supports initiatives, innovative and advanced genomic solutions. Jane holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Pretoria in South Africa and an MBA from The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands where she learned marketing, commercial and customer experience skills. She worked as a medical technician in the microbiology department of a human diagnostic laboratory (Ampath laboratories, in South Africa), where she handled processing and analysing human samples. She was based at the CSIR as a PhD candidate where she gained biotechnology experience and based at University of Pretoria as a postdoctoral fellow focused on metavirome analysis for identification and characterisation of viruses in rodents in South Africa. Prior to joining FG-Technologies, she worked briefly at CapeBio technologies as a research and development scientist heading the R&D department, where she gained more experience in the field of genomics.
