San Diego Union Tribune
10-17-06
Genome scientist Venter to open S.D. operation
By Penni Crabtree
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Renowned biologist and businessman J. Craig Venter, who bucked the scientific
establishment to create a commercial version of the Human Genome Project, is
setting up shop in San Diego.
Venter's nonprofit genomics research organization, the J. Craig Venter Institute,
and Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company that Venter co-founded last
year, have leased about 18,000 square feet of laboratory and office space in
Torrey Pines.
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The research hub is expected to house portions of both the Venter Institute and
Synthetic Genomics, specifically aspects dealing with the development of
alternative fuels, said John Orcutt, a University of California San Diego official
who is working with Venter.
Neither Venter Institute nor Synthetic Genomics officials returned telephone calls
seeking comments.
Venter is the founder of Celera Genomics, which became famous for competing
with the government-sponsored Human Genome Project to sequence all the
genes found in the human species. He was drawn to San Diego in part because
of his partnership with UCSD in two academic consortiums, said Orcutt, head of
the newly created UCSD Center for Bioenergy, Science and Technology.
The center, in partnership with the Venter Institute and Iowa State University, is
making a bid for $500 million in funding from energy giant BP, which earlier this
year announced plans to establish a single biosciences energy research
laboratory that will be attached to a major university in either the United States or
the United Kingdom.
The selected institution – UCSD is one of a handful in the running – will receive
$500 million from BP over 10 years to apply genomics to the production of new
and cleaner energy, principally alternatives to traditional gasoline, Orcutt said.
The consortium is also trying to land $125 million in funding from the Department
of Energy, which earlier this year launched a competition for proposals to create
two bioenergy research centers.
Orcutt termed Venter's San Diego operations as a “foot-in-the-door,” but added
that it could expand significantly if the consortium succeeds with its funding
quest.
“It may have a substantial future in San Diego,” Orcutt said.
Sharing the Torrey Pines facilities with the Venter Institute will be scientists from
Synthetic Genomics, a Rockville, Md.-based biotechnology company formed last
year by Venter and his longtime collaborator, Nobel Prize winner Hamilton O.
Smith.
Synthetic Genomics' goal is to create or modify microbes that can be used as
"bio-factories” in industrial processes, such as turning crops into ethanol. In
February, Synthetic Genomics named as its new president Aristides Patrinos,
who directed the Department of Energy's research efforts to create new biofuels
using genomics technologies.
In addition to the biofuels consortium, Venter, who received his doctorate in
physiology and pharmacology from UCSD, is involved in another UCSD initiative
dubbed CAMERA.
CAMERA, or the Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Marine Microbial
Ecology Research and Analysis project, is developing an information framework
that will allow scientists to organize and analyze data on the genomes of ocean
microbes and the environments in which they live.
Venter recently concluded a three-year, worldwide voyage sampling ocean
genomes. That trip was funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore
Foundation, which also provided $24.5 million to fund the CAMERA project.