Ian Jackson has a First Class degree in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford. He went on to do a PhD with Bob Williamson at St. Mary's Hospital in London, at the very beginning of DNA cloning studies on humans. In 1981 he joined Don Brown's laboratory at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore where he studies TF3A, the first vertebrate transcription factor to be identified. He subsequently joined the MRC Mammalian Development Unit at UCL, under the Directorship of Anne McLaren. In 1986 Ian moved to the MRC Human Genetics Unit as a Lister Fellow. He became an MRC Senior Scientist in 1991 and Head of Disease Mechanisms in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008. Among other current responsibilities he is a Board member of the National Centre for 3Rs.