Craig Venter
Craig Venter
John Craig Venteris an American biotechnologist, biochemist, geneticist, and entrepreneur. He is known for being one of the first to sequence the human genome and the first to transfect a cell with a synthetic genome. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Researchand the J. Craig Venter Institute, and is now CEO of Human Longevity Inc. He was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2010, the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth14 October 1946
CountryUnited States of America
define definition easily genes life molecular nature refuses
I naively thought that we could have a molecular definition for life, come up with a set of genes that would minimally define life. Nature just refuses to be so easily quantified.
catalog genes trying
I have this idea of trying to catalog all the genes on the planet.
associated chance changes discovery genes genetic physicians problem turns women wrongly
Part of the problem with the discovery of the so-called breast-cancer genes was that physicians wrongly told women that had the genetic changes associated with the genes that they had a 99% chance of getting breast cancer. Turns out all women that have these genetic changes don't get breast cancer.
design forcing genetic humans lack
Genetic design is something we can use to fight the lack of sustainability we humans are forcing on the earth's environment.
biologists clear code genetic lead likely messages proteins time
Mathematicians have been hiding and writing messages in the genetic code for a long time, but it's clear they were mathematicians and not biologists because, if you write long messages with the code that the mathematicians developed, it would more than likely lead to new proteins being synthesized with unknown functions.
clearer confess genetics humans including worked
One of the things about genetics that has become clearer as we've done genomes - as we've worked our way through the evolutionary tree, including humans - is that we're probably much more genetic animals than we want to confess we are.
across gene large number quite relationships version
For each gene in your genome, you quite often get a different version of that gene from your father and a different version from your mother. We need to study these relationships across a very large number of people.
biological digital form genetic life pace possible social translate
Now that we can read and write the genetic code, put it in digital form and translate it back into synthesized life, it will be possible to speed up biological evolution to the pace of social evolution.
blend disease gene linked lower
I have a blend of klotho gene variants that have been linked with a lower risk for coronary artery disease and stroke and an advantage in longevity.
average colon direction early exams far frequent genetic greater knew medicine relatively surgery
Preventative medicine has to be the direction we go in. For example, if colon cancer is detected early - because a person knew he had a genetic risk and was having frequent exams - the surgery is relatively inexpensive and average survival is far greater than 10 years.
cells days die genetic information lack minutes
Cells will die in minutes to days if they lack their genetic information system. They will not evolve, they will not replicate, and they will not live.
engineered environmental food future hopefully perhaps source species
I think future engineered species could be the source of food, hopefully a source of energy, environmental remediation and perhaps replacing the petrochemical industry.
factual genome gets guess human learn patent people political trying washington
People think that Celera's trying to patent the whole human genome because it's been used as - I guess people in Washington learn how to do political attacks, and so it gets used as a political weapon, not as a factual one.
biology finite fuels isolated major number otherwise
Right now, oil is being isolated around the globe, and there is a major effort in shipping, trucking and otherwise transporting that oil around to a very finite number of refineries. Biology allows us to make these same fuels in a much more distributed fashion.