Bio #4: Craig Venter

Welcome to Craig Venter! This is one in a series of student-driven puzzle caches devoted to the scientists who have uncovered the mysteries of DNA, and in this case continue to do so.

Craig Venter is a biomedical scientist that is most well known for his role in sequencing the human genome. Dr. Venter created the company Selera, which produced DNA sequencing machines that far surpassed the speed and coverage capable by the national government. In fact, the government funded Human Genome Project had to scramble to collaborate with Venter and co-publish the full sequence, otherwise Craig would have beat them to it.

Venter was born on October 14, 1946 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He didn’t take school seriously. He mainly wanted to be on the water, either riding boats or surfing. His grades weren’t very good, mainly C’s and D’s. Craig was drafted by the US Navy during the Vietnam War. While he opposed the war, he worked as an intensive-care ward in a field hospital. It was a dark period in Craig’s life. While he was in Vietnam, Craig tried to commit suicide by swimming out to sea. A mile from shore, he changed his mind and swam back. Being confronted by dead, maimed, and wounded Marines, Venter became resolute on wanting to study medicine. After the war he began his secondary education at a community college in San Mateo California. He later transferred and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1972 and his PhD in 1975. Venter founded Celera Genomics, a company that used advanced technology to sequence and analyze genomic data. Craig went on to become an associate professor at the state university of New York at Buffalo. In 1984 he left academia for a coveted job with the National Institute of Health(NIH). During his time at the NIH Dr. Venter studied small sequences of DNA called Expressed Sequence Tags(EST). These DNA strands are produced in the lab by taking human RNA and reversing the “central dogma” to produce DNA that researchers can study the human gene expression. In a controversial move Venter and his colleagues attempted to patent the DNA sequences, in effect patenting human genes. The public outcry was swift, and Craig dropped the patent application. However, Dr. Venter’s goal of “owning” human genome sequence persisted.

Craig watched as the Human Genome Project which started in 1990 slowly marched towards sequencing simple organisms, and eventually the entire human sequence. He believed that the technique being used by the project was slow and could be done much faster using a technique called “shotgun sequencing.” The shotgun sequencing method was used to sequence long DNA strands. It got its name because of the rapidly expanding quasi-random firing pattern of a shotgun. The shotgun sequence method starts by amplifying a high-molecular-weight DNA strand that is shredded into random pieces, size selected (usually 2, 10, 50, and 150kb) and cloned into the appropriate vectors. The clones are then sequenced from both ends. Each sequence is called an end-read. The original sequence is reconstructed using a sequence assembly software.

Venter, Francis Collins and the U.S. Public Genome Project made the announcement of sequencing the human genome as a group. The letter c is equal to the the number of blind mice. The announcement was made with U.S. president Bill Clinton and UK prime minister Tony Blair. Craig and Francis shared the “Biography of the Year” award. The mapping of the human genome was a race between Craig Venter and the US Government. In reality, the announcement came before the final sequence was completed. In fact it was done in haste so that the government project wouldn’t look foolish for losing to a private company who started well behind. The official first human genome was published in the journal Nature on February 15th 2001. Venter’s time with Celera didn’t last long. He was fired in 2002 due to a dispute with his main investor, who barred Craig from visiting the white house celebration following the sequence being published.

While Dr. Venter’s contributions to science at this point were historic, he was certainly not finished. He went on to start the GOS (Global Ocean Sampling) expedition on March 4, 2004. It’s goal was to research the bacterial colonies in the oceans using advanced deep sequencing techniques. The project used Craig’s yacht “Sorcerer II.” The expedition started in Halifax, Canada. “Sorcerer II” circumnavigated the globe, and returned to the US in January, 2006. The whole expedition lasted 2 years. The GOS expedition was a marine life genome project to study marine life and understand what their roles were in nature’s fundamental process.

Craig went on to be the first scientist to artificially manufacture a bacterial genome and bring it to life. On March 8, 2004, Craig announced the creation of his harmless, bacteria-infesting virus. He made it in 2 weeks flat.The Department of Energy backed Venter’s creation with 12 million dollars of taxpayer money.

Finally, on September 4th 2007 Craig became the first individual genome sequenced and published. Furthermore, it was the first diploid genome sequenced. What that means is that previous sequenced genomes were for one copy(haploid) of the paired human chromosomes. The sequencing of the entire diploid genome is undoubtedly a precursor to tailored genetic treatment, an inevitable advancement in medical technology.

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