Craig Venter
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John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946, Salt Lake City) is an American biologist and businessman. He began his academic career at a community college, College of San Mateo (California), after enlisting in the navy and serving a tour of duty during the Vietnam War. On returning, he received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology in 1975, both from the University of California, San Diego. After working at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he joined the National Institutes of Health in 1984.
While at NIH, Venter learned of a technique for rapidly identifying all of the mRNAs present in a cell, and began to use it to rapidly identify human brain genes. The short cDNA sequence fragments discovered by this method are called Expressed sequence tags, or ESTs, a name coined by Anthony Kerlavage at The Institute for Genomic Research. In a controversial court case, Venter tried to patent these gene fragments and lost the case.
He was the former president and founder of Celera Genomics, which became famous for running a Human Genome Project of its own for commercial purposes, using shotgun sequencing technology in 1999. DNA from 5 individuals was used by Celera to generate the sequence of the human genome; one of the 5 individuals used in this project was Venter. Venter was fired by Celera in early 2002 after it became clear that selling genome data would not become profitable and Venter resisted efforts by the company board to change the strategic direction of the company.
Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in 1992. Venter is currently the president of the J. Craig Venter Institute, created and funded by TIGR's board (which Venter chairs). In June of 2005, he co-founded Synthetic Genomics, a firm dedicated to using modified microorganisms to produce ethanol and hydrogen as alternative fuels.
Venter has been the subject of several articles, notably in Wired and The Economist in December 2004, and Australian science magazine Cosmos in 2005.
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