Andy Watson, formerly the vice president of SOLiD sequencing product management at Life Technologies, is now the vice president and chief marketing officer at RainDance Technologies. Watson has over 20 years experience in developing and commercializing genomics technologies. Prior to joining LifeTech, Watson was a founder of Quantum Dot, where he held executive technical and business management roles. He also led the development of technologies and software for large scale DNA analysis at Sequana Therapeutics and at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Watson holds MA and BA degrees from King's College, Cambridge University.
Watson's replacement at Life Tech will be Graham Scott, senior manager of global marketing development for sequencing at the company.
Jeffrey Trent, the president and research director of the Translational Genomics Research Institute, has been appointed Foreign Trade Counselor of Luxembourg in the United States. Trent is also the president and research director of Van Andel Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research institute. Previously, he served as the founding scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. He has also held faculty positions at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University. He holds a PhD in genetics from the University of Arizona.