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Sequencing the Human Genome
Presented on August 17, 2001 by Craig Venter, Celera Genomics
In the final lecture of the 2001 Friday Evening Lecture Series for the Marine Biological Laboratory, J. Craig Venter, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Celera Genomics Corporation, talks about the steps that led to sequencing the human genome, the strategies that he and his team developed for accelerating the process, and its implications for the future.
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Lecture Video
Pre-Lecture Video
Lecture transcript
- Part 1 - Early DNA Sequencing Techniques
- Part 4 - Future Plans for Human Genome Sequencing
About Craig Venter
Medical Terminology
More about this lecture:
In 1991, while at the National Institutes of Health, Mark Adams and J. Craig Venter developed Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) sequencing for the discovery and mapping of genes. The EST method is the principal method of gene discovery used by scientists around the world and has contributed to many disease gene discoveries including the colon cancer genes found by TIGR in collaboration with Bert Vogelstein's group. Today ESTs comprise over 70% of all Genbank accessions. The existence of hundreds of thousands of EST sequences required new algorithm development by TIGR that further led to a fundamental change in genomics. Using the new algorithms (TIGR Assembler), TIGR was the first to sequence a complete genome of a free-living species, Haemophilus influenzae. With the successful sequencing of the H. influenzae genome, it became apparent that the DNA of entire complex organisms many megabases in size could be accurately and rapidly sequenced by using the "shotgun" sequencing strategy.
In May 1998, Celera Genomics was formed with a stated mission to sequence the entire human genome using breakthrough DNA analysis technology developed by Applied Biosystems and the TIGR whole genome shotgun method. As a prelude to the human genome, Celera announced it would sequence the fruit fly genome. A formal collaboration was established between Celera and the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project with the goal of publishing a highly accurate, contiguous genome. A new and advanced assembly algorithm developed by Gene Myers was used to assemble the sequence. Successful assembly was completed and published in March 2000.
Celera announced on April 6, 2000, that they had completed the sequencing phase of the genome from one human being using 300 PE Applied Biosystems 3700 DNA sequencers. Using a new and advanced continuous assembly algorithm on June 26, 2000, Celera announced the first assembly of the human genome consisting of 3.12 billion base pairs. On February 16, 2001, Celera's manuscript on the sequencing of the human genome was published in Science magazine.
Celera, in partnership with Compaq, has created a data center for sequence assembly and database access that will be among the largest commercial centers in the world. Celera has turned to the sequencing of the mouse genome, which is of critical importance to biomedical researchers as a model for studies of human biology and medicine, and has sequenced the genomes of three separate and distinct mouse strains.
J. Craig Venter earned his B.A in biochemistry (1972) and his Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology (1975) from the University of California, San Diego. Venter was Assistant Professor of pharmacology and therapeutics (1976-1981), Associate Professor of biochemistry (1982), Adjunct Professor of biochemical pharmacology (1983-1989), and Research Professor of biochemistry (1984-1985) at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was also Associate Chief Cancer Research Scientist in the Department of Molecular Immunology at the Roswell Park Memorial Institute. Venter was Chief of the Section of Receptor Biochemistry (1984-1987), Chief of Receptor Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Section (1987-1991), Co-Director (1987-1991) and Chief (1990-1991) of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology, Director of the NINDS DNA facility (1988-1992), and Chief of the Receptor Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Section, Office of the Director (1991-1992) at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Venter is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Celera Genomics Corporation and the Founder, Chairman of the Board and former President of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), a not-for-profit genomics research institution. Venter has published more than 160 research articles and is one of the most cited scientists in biology and medicine. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2000 King Faisal Award in Science. He was recently selected as a runner up for TIME Magazine's Man of the Year and was selected as Man of the Year for the Financial Times. In addition to receiving honorary degrees for his pioneering work, he has been elected a Fellow of several societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore will introduce J. Craig Venter. Baltimore earned his B.A. in chemistry from Swarthmore College (1960) and his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University (1963). Baltimore was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1963-1964) and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1964-1965). From 1965 to 1968 he was a research associate at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies before returning to MIT, where he was Associate Professor of microbiology (1968-1972) and Professor of biology (1972-1990). From 1973 to 1983, Baltimore was the American Cancer Society's Professor of Microbiology. He was a member (1982-1991) and Director (1982-1990) of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and was a professor (1990-1994) at and President (1990-1991) of The Rockefeller University. He was the Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of molecular biology and immunology (1994-1997) and Institute Professor (1995-1997) at MIT. He has been Chairman of the NIH AIDS vaccine research committee since 1996 and President of the California Institute of Technology since 1997. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Baltimore has received numerous awards and honors - most notably the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975. He has received honorary degrees from several institutions and has served on the editorial boards of several publications, including Science and Daedalus.
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