Jon Armstrong BS, MSc

Jon Armstrong has over 15 years of experience in assay and technology development, and most recently in the application of next generation sequencing technologies to diagnostics and assay development. Jon’s career career began at the Washington University Genome Center in the early 2000’s, where he worked under Dr. Elaine Mardis in the Technology Development group. While there, he developed a Chromosome 2, 7, and 11 bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) array, which led to the discovery of del(2) progression factor in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL) and developed the Washington University C. elegans Whole Genome Oligo Array. Additionally, Jon developed a sub-picogram whole genome amplification procedure used for characterization of bacterial pools for the Human Microbiome Project and designed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) multi-locus sequence-typing (MLST) test for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Jon also Alpha- and beta-tested all aspects, including wet-lab, hardware, and software of Illumina’s serial #1 sequencer. In 2009, Jon co-founded Cofactor Genomics, a biotechnology and software company focused on building RNA-based clinical assays and diagnostics, where he serves as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO).