Ventor's Work

Dr. J. Craig Venter is founder of J. Craig Venter Institute and Celera Genomics, the latter having sequenced the first complete human genome as well as the fruit fly, mouse and rat genome. A leading connoisseur in the field of genetics, Dr. Venter has been described as a trail blazer and genome pioneer and has been awarded numerous prestigious scientific awards. Though obviously an important and highly intellectual individual, Dr. Venter was perhaps a bit too haste in his description of his latest achievement- a ‘synthetic cell’.

A team of scientists led by Daniel G. Gibson, Hamilton O. Smith and Dr. Venter published their recent findings in Science; they were able to synthesize an entire bacterial genome compromised of many 1,000 base-pair long DNA fragments. The original genome came from a bacterium infecting goats though was manufactured in a way that rendered it un-pathogenic. The 1,080,000 base-pair long genome was inserted into another species of bacterium and was able to create new protein and organelle not endemic to that cell. Dr. Venter and his team eventually hope to mass produce cells engineered to make specific types of proteins/chemicals in the hopes of making vaccines and biofuels. In fact, he currently is contracted with Exxon to ‘create’ algae using this current technique designed to produce certain chemicals in hopes of creating biofuels.

Though Dr. Venter’s achievement will help the scientific community, other scientists have polar opinions on the magnitude of his work. Gerald Joyce, a biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, praised Venter stating he has created a powerful tool. Another, David Baltimore, a geneticist at Caltech, has called Dr. Venter’s achievement what it is- a technical advancement, perhaps akin to making a really really long primer. In the truest sense of the word synthesizing a cell (in my opinion) would be creating all the components of a cell, not just the genome. Perhaps in the future journalists and Dr. Venter will use greater discretion when describing his scientific advancements, or maybe he will find a small bit of humility the next time he’s sailing his yacht.