Mark Blaxter

Mark Blaxter is Head of the Tree of Life Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. ToL is generating and analysing reference genome sequences from thousands of species across the tree of life, with initial focus on the eukaryotic biota of Britain and Ireland (Darwin Tree of Life Project), and the genomes of symbiotic organisms (Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics project). ToL is part also of the international European Reference Genome Atlas, the Vertebrate Genomes Project and the Earth BioGenome Project. Before joining Sanger, he was Professor of Evolutionary Genomics in the University of Edinburgh, where his research portfolio focussed on the genomics of neglected, non-model organisms - and the interpretation of those genomes in ecological and evolutionary contexts. His current research portfolio focuses on using reference genomes to understand pattern and process in genome evolution, with an abiding interest in nematodes and other meiofauna. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2014.