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
Craig Venter quotes about
Genetic design is something we can use to fight the lack of sustainability we humans are forcing on the earth's environment.
Genes can't possibly explain all of what makes us what we are.
Companies, cities, and potentially even individuals could have a small refinery to make their own fuel.
I have this idea of trying to catalog all the genes on the planet.
I hope I'll be remembered for my scientific contribution to understanding life and human life.
Society and medicine treat us all as members of populations, whereas as individuals we are all unique, and population statistics do not apply.
If you have lung cancer, the most important thing you can know is your genetic code.
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.
In a biological system, the software builds its own hardware, but design is critical, and if you start with digital information, it has to be really accurate.
If there is a race, it is one to bring the benefits of genomes to human therapeutics. We all want to get there. We all want people to have much more meaningful and productive lives as they age.
Nobel prizes are very special prizes, and it would be great to get one.
Synthetic biology can help address key challenges facing the planet and its population. Research in synthetic biology may lead to new things such as programmed cells that self-assemble at the sites of disease to repair damage.
As a scientist, I clearly see the potential for harnessing the power of nature.
Energy is probably the most pressing demand on our planet.