J. Craig Venter

J. Craig Venter is an American biologist and entrepreneur known for developing rapid genome-sequencing methods, contributing to human genome sequencing, and leading research on synthetic genomes.

Hamilton Smith: Hamilton Smith is an American microbiologist who discovered restriction enzymes and collaborated with Venter on synthetic biology. Smith and Venter co-founded the Institute for Genomic Research and collaborated on synthetic-genome research.
Whole-genome shotgun sequencing: A sequencing strategy that breaks a genome into many fragments, sequences them, and reconstructs their order computationally. Venter championed this strategy as a faster alternative to mapping genomes before sequencing.
Human Genome Project: The Human Genome Project was an international public research program that produced a reference sequence of the human genome. Venter’s Celera project challenged its sequencing strategy and accelerated the race to publish a human genome.
Personal genomics: Personal genomics analyzes an individual’s DNA to identify genetic variation relevant to ancestry, traits, or health. Venter’s published genome helped make individual genome sequencing a visible scientific and public possibility.
Francis Collins: Francis Collins is an American geneticist who led the publicly funded Human Genome Project. Collins led the public project that competed with Venter’s Celera effort to sequence the human genome.
Sanger sequencing: A DNA sequencing method that uses chain-terminating nucleotides to infer a DNA molecule’s sequence. Automated Sanger sequencing supplied much of the raw data for Venter’s genome projects.
Human genome: The human genome is the complete set of DNA sequences in a human cell, including nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. Sequencing this genome was the high-profile scientific goal behind Venter’s Celera work.
Patentability of genes: Gene patentability concerns whether isolated DNA sequences or genetic inventions can receive legal patent protection. Celera’s commercial strategy intensified debates about private control of genomic information.
Eric Lander: Eric Lander is an American geneticist who directed the Broad Institute and helped lead human-genome research. Lander was a prominent scientific voice in the public-private contest over human-genome sequencing.
Genome assembly: Genome assembly is the computational reconstruction of longer DNA sequences from overlapping sequencing fragments. Celera’s shotgun strategy depended on assembling millions of short sequence reads.

Linked from 5 pages