J. Craig Venter
Geneticist and biotechnology entrepreneur
J. Craig Venter was an American geneticist and businessman who led an early draft sequencing of the human genome and founded the J. Craig Venter Institute.
2 summaries 40 min of listening
American Born 1946 in Salt Lake City, United States Died 2026
About J. Craig Venter
J. Craig Venter was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 14, 1946, and died on April 29, 2026. He worked as a geneticist and businessman, and he headed an early effort to draft the sequence of the human genome, with results published in 2001. He founded Celera Genomics, the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and he co-founded Human Longevity Inc. and Synthetic Genomics. His teams sequenced more than 300 organisms, and his team was the first to introduce a synthetic chromosome into a cell. He received the 2008 National Medal of Science. Venter wrote A Life Decoded, a book about his genome and his life, and Life at the Speed of Light.