J. Craig Venter, the scientist and businessman who raced to extract the human genome, died Wednesday in San Diego. He was 79 years old.
His death was announced by the non-profit organization J. Craig Venter Institute, founded by Dr. Venter and based in San Diego and Rockville, Md. The center said in a statement that Dr. Venter was recently hospitalized due to side effects of cancer treatment.
In the 1990s, Dr. Venter, a risk-taker and fiercely competitive, made a bold move when he decided that the Human Genome Project, a $3 billion government program to sequence the human genome, was slow enough that he could enter the race late and win it the fastest.
His gamble paid off. In 2000, his company, Celera, made a joint announcement with a competitor that they had sequenced the first human genome, a historic step toward uncovering the genetic basis of disease and human origins.
Dr. Venter had a strong ego. That became clear when he admitted that the anonymous donor named Celera was none other than himself.
But his leadership and management skills helped him inspire loyalty and bring together groups of eminent scientists, including Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist Hamilton O. Smith. Together, they achieved one milestone after another in the emerging field of genomics.
In 1995, Dr. Venter revolutionized microbiology when he published the sequence of DNA from a bacterium. Hemophilus influenzae, the first bacterial genome to be determined, and the annotations of all the genes of the organism.
Time is electrified science. For the first time, researchers were able to see all the genes of a free-living organism, making microbiologists a toolkit for bacterial genes. It also began a race to sequence the genomes of known viruses, with the aim of identifying their genetic reserves and developing ways to combat them.
His team then turned to the fruit fly genome to test whether their method, known as whole-genome shotgun sequencing, could work on its biggest target: the human genome. The fruit fly genome was successfully sequenced in 2000, providing a wealth of information that can help scientists study both fly and human genes.
Sequencing the human genome, the next big challenge for Dr. Venter, was the focus of a competition between his team at Celera against a combination of academic rivals led by the United States and Britain. The National Institutes of Health, the main promoter of these efforts, refused to work with Dr. Venter, who received private funding from the Celera company.
All Dr. Venter’s genetic gun shooting ability has enabled him to wipe out the start of his opponents. When he had enough money, he might have taken this biggest science prize. Instead, he agreed, reluctantly, to accept the consortium’s proposal for a formal drawing, with a subsequent White House ceremony with President Bill Clinton.
For his contributions to the sequencing of the human genome, Dr. Venter received the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2007. President Barack Obama awarded him the National Medal of Science in 2009.
The details of the survivors were not yet available.
Jin Yu Young reporting contributed.
