Venter, J. Craig (1946-…), is an American biochemist and businessman conducting important research on the human genome, the entire set of chemical instructions that control heredity in a human being. In 1999, Venter’s company, called Celera Genomics Corporation, began to determine the chemical structure of the human genome using a process called genome sequencing.
The human genome is made up of structures called chromosomes. Each chromosome is composed of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is made up of chemical compounds known as base pairs. Groups of base pairs, called genes, determine hereditary traits. Genome sequencing detects the pattern of base pairs within the genome. This information helps reveal the structure of the individual gene and aids in determining the gene’s roles in normal life processes or disease.
Venter and his colleagues are using a special technique called whole-genome shotgunning to sequence the human genome. First, several genomes are randomly broken into fragments about 2,000 base pairs long. Sequencing machines determine the identity of about 500 base pairs on each of the fragments. Overlapping fragments taken from different genomes are then compared and assembled into one completely sequenced genome. The technique involves enormous amounts of information that must be processed. Powerful computers analyze and assemble the genome fragments into a sequence.
Venter has used the whole-genome shotgun technique to sequence the genome of simple forms of life. In 1995, Venter and his colleagues were the first to map the genome for an entire self-reproducing organism. The organism, a bacterium, has a genome composed of about 2 million base pairs. The technique, however, had never been used on something as large as the human genome, which scientists believe is composed of more than 3 billion base pairs.
The Human Genome Project, an international scientific program formally established in 1990, used a different technique to sequence and map the human genome. In June 2000, Venter and Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Project, announced that Celera Genomics Corporation and the public Human Genome Project together had sequenced essentially the entire human genome. Celera Genomics could potentially sell portions of the genome information to drug companies and other users for huge profits.
John Craig Venter was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Oct. 14, 1946. After graduating from high school, he joined the United States Navy and served as a medical corpsman from 1965 to 1968. His experiences during the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968 persuaded him to study medicine. He enrolled at the University of California at San Diego but soon found that he preferred research in biology. He earned a degree in biochemistry in 1972 and a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology in 1975. He held positions at the National Institutes of Health from 1984 to 1992. In 1992, Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research (known as TIGR), a nonprofit research institution. He cofounded Celera Genomics in 1998. In 2002, Venter resigned as president of Celera Genomics. In 2006, Venter merged TIGR with several related organizations to form the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation, a genomic research institute based in Rockville, Maryland, and La Jolla, California. In 2007, Venter announced that he had sequenced all 46 chromosomes of his own genome. This genome, the third complete human genome to be sequenced, showed that the amount of genetic diversity in human beings is greater than scientists had previously thought.
