After working as an
associate professor, and later as full professor, at the
State University of New York at Buffalo, he joined the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1984.
EST controversy While an employee of the NIH, Venter learned how to identify
mRNA and began to learn more about how it is expressed in the human brain. The short
cDNA sequence fragments Venter discovered by automated
DNA sequencing, he named
expressed sequence tags, or ESTs. The
NIH Office of Technology Transfer decided to file a patent on the ESTs discovered by Venter,
patenting the genes identified based on studies of mRNA expression in the human brain. When Venter disclosed the NIH strategy during a Congressional hearing, a firestorm of controversy erupted. The NIH later stopped the effort and abandoned the patent applications it had filed, following public outcry.
Human Genome Project Venter was passionate about the power of genomics to transform healthcare radically. Venter believed that
whole genome shotgun sequencing was the fastest and most effective way to get useful human genome data. The company planned to profit from their work by creating genomic data to which users could subscribe for a fee. The goal consequently put pressure on the public genome program and spurred several groups to redouble their efforts to produce the full sequence. Venter's effort won him renown as he and his team at
Celera Corporation shared credit for sequencing the first draft human genome with the publicly funded
Human Genome Project. and
Francis Collins on announcing the draft completion of the
Human Genome Project in June 2000 In 2000, Venter and
Francis Collins of the
National Institutes of Health and U.S. Public Genome Project jointly made the announcement of the mapping of the human genome, a full three years ahead of the expected end of the Public Genome Program. The announcement was made along with U.S. President
Bill Clinton, and UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair. Venter and Collins thus shared an award for "Biography of the Year" from
A&E Network. On February 15, 2001, the Human Genome Project consortium published the first Human Genome in the journal
Nature, followed one day later by a Celera publication in
Science. Despite some claims that
shotgun sequencing was in some ways less accurate than the clone-by-clone method chosen by the Human Genome Project, the technique became widely accepted by the scientific community. Venter was fired by Celera in early 2002. According to his biography, Venter was fired because of a conflict with the main investor, Tony White, specifically barring him from attending the
White House ceremony celebrating the achievement of sequencing the human genome. White was sidelined at the ceremony and the presentation of the result as a tie weakened Celera's claims. White wanted to monetize the achievement by turning Celera into a pharmaceutical company but Venter was not interested in that, had no experience of that business and so was dispensable.
Global Ocean Sampling Expedition The
Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS) is an
ocean exploration genome project with the goal of assessing the
genetic diversity in
marine microbial communities and to understand their role in nature's fundamental processes. Begun as a
Sargasso Sea pilot sampling project in August 2003, the full Expedition was announced by Venter on March 4, 2004. The project, which used Venter's personal yacht,
Sorcerer II, started in
Halifax, Canada, circumnavigated the globe and returned to the U.S. in January 2006.
Synthetic Genomics , location In June 2005, Venter co-founded
Synthetic Genomics, a firm dedicated to using modified
microorganisms to produce
clean fuels and
biochemicals. In July 2009,
ExxonMobil announced a $600 million collaboration with Synthetic Genomics to research and develop next-generation
biofuels. Venter continued to work on the development of engineered diatomic
microalgae for the production of biofuels. Venter sought a patent for the first partially synthetic species possibly to be named
Mycoplasma laboratorium. There is speculation that this line of research could have led to the production of
bacteria that are engineered to perform specific reactions, for example, produce
fuels, make medicines or combat
global warming. In May 2010, a team of scientists led by Venter became the first to produce successfully what was described as "
synthetic life". This was done by synthesizing a very long DNA molecule containing an entire bacterium
genome, and introducing this into another
cell, analogous to the accomplishment of
Eckard Wimmer's group, who synthesized and ligated an
RNA virus genome and "booted" it in cell
lysate. The single-celled organism contains four "watermarks" written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and to help trace its descendants. These watermarks include: • Code table for entire alphabet with punctuation • Names of 46 contributing scientists • Three quotations • The secret email address for the cell On March 25, 2016, Venter reported the formation of Syn 3.0, a synthetic genome having the fewest genes of any freely living organism (473 genes). Their aim was to strip away all nonessential genes, leaving only the minimal set necessary to support life. This stripped-down, fast reproducing cell is expected to be a valuable tool for researchers in the field. In August 2018, Venter retired as chairman of the board, saying he wanted to focus on his work at the J. Craig Venter Institute. He remained as a scientific adviser to the board.
J. Craig Venter Institute In 2006, Venter founded the
J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a nonprofit which conducts research in
synthetic biology. It has facilities in La Jolla and in
Rockville, Maryland, and employs over 200 people. In April 2022, Venter sold the La Jolla JCVI facility to the
University of California, San Diego, for $25 million. Venter continued to lead a separate nonprofit research group, also known as the J. Craig Venter Institute, and stressed that he was not retiring. With multiple new facility hires, the Venter Institute outgrew its building and in 2025 moved into a new space .
Individual human genome On September 4, 2007, a team led by Sam Levy published one of the first genomes of an individual human—Venter's own DNA sequence. Some of the sequences in Venter's genome are associated with wet
earwax, increased risk of antisocial behavior,
Alzheimer's, and
cardiovascular diseases. The browser enabled scientists to navigate the HuRef genome assembly and sequence variations, and to compare it with the NCBI human build 36 assembly in the context of the
NCBI and
Ensembl annotations. The browser provides a comparative view between NCBI and HuRef consensus sequences, the sequence multi-alignment of the HuRef assembly, Ensembl and dbSNP annotations, HuRef variants, and the underlying variant evidence and functional analysis. The interface also represents the
haplotype blocks from which diploid genome sequence can be inferred and the relation of variants to gene annotations. The display of variants and gene annotations are linked to external public resources including
dbSNP, Ensembl,
Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM), and
Gene Ontology (GO). At the time of the announcement, the company had already raised $70 million in
venture financing, which was expected to last 18 months. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by a California judge on the basis that Human Longevity was unable to present a case that met the legal threshold required for a company, or individual, to sue when its trade secrets have been stolen. Human Longevity's mission is to extend healthy human lifespan by the use of high-resolution
big data diagnostics from
genomics,
metabolomics,
microbiomics, and
proteomics, and the use of
stem cell therapy. ==Published books==