Word: venter
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...article on gene hunter Craig Venter [THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE, Jan. 11] incorrectly referred to Venter's mentor; he is Ronald Nadel, not Nadal...
...Venter flourished in the private sector. Backed by venture capitalist Wallace Steinberg, he founded the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and within a year had been transformed from a government scientist with a $2,000 savings account to a millionaire. He gave gifts of stock to his family and Fraser's, and bought the Sorcerer. Meanwhile, he continued to pour money into genomics, completing gene maps of the Haemophilus influenzae bacterium in 1995, followed by those of H. pylori, which causes ulcers, and the syphilis microbe...
Even though TIGR was spewing out gene sequences at unprecedented rates, Venter was still restless. Then Hunkapiller called from his office at Perkin-Elmer to say that he had a new, faster machine he wanted Venter to see. What Venter saw was the future: a gene-mapping computer 50 times as fast as anything running at TIGR. With one of these machines, the 1,000 scientists who had spent 10 years decoding a yeast genome could have completed their work in one day. Emboldened by the new technology, Venter announced his plans to sequence the human genome rapidly. He founded...
With prestige and grants on the line, government and academic scientists regrouped and counterattacked. The most important naysayer, as usual, was Watson, but others quickly lined up behind him. Venter's "book of life," said one of the leaders of the federal genome program, would be a Mad magazine...
...even his many critics acknowledge that Venter is a scientist with remarkable insight--indeed, a likely Nobel prizewinner. Francis Collins, who took over the Human Genome Project after Watson's departure, concedes that Venter "stirred the pot," while Watson, still Venter's severest critic, is careful to avoid public comment on their feud. But with the race entering its final laps, Venter is prepared to stake everything he has on the outcome. "In three years or so," he promises, "one of us is going to look mighty foolish...