He is the guy who wants to know all the secrets of life.First he struck fame with TIGR, where along with Fleischman and team they decoded the entire H influenzae genome( favorite AIPGMEE MCQ!!)He attempted to outgun the Human Genome Project guys with shotgun sequencing at Celera.(This really fired them into fifth gear to complete the project well before time.)
He published his own complete genotype on the Internet, an effort that cost more that $60 million.He created with his scientists, Synthia", a synthetic chromosome that they are calling (and patenting as) a "minimal bacterial genome" and using this they claim to have created the first man-made organism: Mycoplasma laboratorium.
It cost the HGP $3 billion to do the blueprint completely. Now Venter wants to get it to less than $ 10,000.Venter is a major contributor to the $ 10 million bounty offered by the X prize foundation to any company which manages this.
Fred Sanger ,the only person to win the Nobel prize twice, did all the spadework with painstaking effort perfecting the Sanger technique for sequencing the genome.But Venter wants to mechanize it like a conveyer belt of sorts churning out genomes after genomes.We thought DNA chips were nouveau chic- he's giving you the full monty.
Craig Venter wants answers to everything,be the in-control guy.
I may be a conservative on all of this,but I have mixed feelings about all of this.Although I should acknowledge all this as extremely exciting, all these efforts seem to me to be in dedication to the deterministic dogma of genotype being the purpose/God/creator/Oracle and phenotype being the expression/action/karma/creation/life.It aims to commodify our current knowledge into a branded, personalized medicine which throws functional genomics and proteomics out of the window.It is an idea which companies like 23andme and AT and T have tried to market to the geekily aroused common American.It has no connection with medicine as it is practiced.
By the way,Venter's genotype had shown genes for Alzheimer's disease, antisocial behaviour and cardiovascular disease!!Go figure.
India trip 2025
This trip has been difficult at the onset due to personal problems and I carried some emotional burden traveling with some unresolved issu...
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This trip has been difficult at the onset due to personal problems and I carried some emotional burden traveling with some unresolved issu... -
As the Tsunami of COVID cases in the Indian subcontinent shows signs of finally receding, what us e d to be a painful routine for many US ... -
Awesome video...look at the hungry ants come in their bellies empty and then slowlydistend with the red sugary stuff.....!!
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