John Craig Venter, the U.S. scientist who led the decoding of the human genome, has died at 79.
The J. Craig Venter Institute said on the 30th (local time) that Venter died during cancer treatment. The J. Craig Venter Institute is a nonprofit research organization founded by Venter.
During the 1990s, when the Human Genome Project to decode the human genome was underway, Venter founded Celera Genomics and led an independent genome analysis. Judging that the Human Genome Project, backed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy (DOE), was progressing more slowly than expected, he used independently developed technology to compete with it.
In fact, the "shotgun sequencing" developed by Venter made a major contribution to speeding up the Human Genome Project. It is a technique that enables genome analysis at a much faster pace than conventional methods by breaking DNA, which contains genetic information, into small random fragments, analyzing the base sequence of each piece, and then reassembling them.
The Human Genome Project also gained momentum as it applied Venter's shotgun sequencing. Venter and the Human Genome Project team jointly announced a draft of the human genome in 2000. It was the moment a crucial milestone was born in uncovering human diseases and their genetic origins.
The Human Genome Project team succeeded in decoding 92% of the genome that performs core functions. In 2022, decoding of the remaining 8% was also achieved, revealing that this portion plays an important role in cell division.
For his contributions to human genome analysis, Venter received the Nierenberg Prize awarded by Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2007. In 2009, he also received the National Medal of Science from former U.S. President Barack Obama. After decoding genetic information, he went on to attempt creating artificial life forms with synthetic genes.
The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), led by Venter, developed the bacterium "JCVI-syn1.0" in 2010, which contained an artificially synthesized genome. It was the first artificial life form. The research team injected an artificially synthesized genome into bacteria whose genes had been removed.
In 2016, Venter's research team announced in the journal Science that it had developed an artificial life form with 493 genes. The original bacterium had 901 genes, but through genome analysis, they optimized it so that it could sufficiently survive and reproduce with only 473.
In 2021, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported in the journal Cell that they added seven genes to version 3.0 of the artificial life form made by Craig Venter, enabling it to divide and grow uniformly like actual bacteria.
Artificial life forms can go beyond mimicking nature to acquire new capabilities. Synthetic Biology, which artificially designs genomes like those of artificial bacteria, is drawing attention as a tool to produce useful substances such as therapeutics and biofuels at minimal cost.
Based on memories from his youth on the battlefields of the Vietnam War, Venter also developed an interest in medicine. He later founded Human Longevity and Diploid Genomics to extend lifespan and diagnose disease. Human Longevity aims to develop technologies that extend lifespan by combining AI with aging research, and Diploid Genomics develops disease-diagnosis technologies using genomic information.
Although the genome analysis technologies developed by Venter are no longer in use as more advanced techniques have emerged, they are credited with laying the foundation for genome research. Anders Dale, head of the J. Craig Venter Institute, said, "His leadership and vision propelled advances in genomics and Synthetic Biology."