Now that we can read and write the genetic code, put it in digital form and translate it back into synthesized life, it will be possible to speed up biological evolution to the pace of social evolution. – Craig Venter
Cells will die in minutes to days if they lack their genetic information system. They will not evolve, they will not replicate, and they will not live. – Craig Venter
As the Industrial Age is drawing to a close, I think that we’re witnessing the dawn of the era of biological design. – Craig Venter
A lot of people spend their last decade of their lives in pain and misery combating disease. – Craig Venter
Part of the problem with the discovery of the so-called breast-cancer genes was that physicians wrongly told women that had the genetic changes associated with the genes that they had a 99% chance of getting breast cancer. Turns out all women that have these genetic changes don’t get breast cancer. – Craig Venter
It appears that the human genome does indeed contain deserts, or large, gene-poor regions. – Craig Venter
We find all kinds of species that have taken up a second chromosome or a third one from somewhere, adding thousands of new traits in a second to that species. So, people who think of evolution as just one gene changing at a time have missed much of biology. – Craig Venter
The day is not far off when we will be able to send a robotically controlled genome-sequencing unit in a probe to other planets to read the DNA sequence of any alien microbe life that may be there. – Craig Venter
There’s not going to be any one replacement for oil: we need to have hundreds of solutions to this global issue. – Craig Venter
Creating life at the speed of light is part of a new industrial revolution. Manufacturing will shift from centralised factories to a distributed, domestic manufacturing future, thanks to the rise of 3D printer technology. – Craig Venter
If there is a race, it is one to bring the benefits of genomes to human therapeutics. We all want to get there. We all want people to have much more meaningful and productive lives as they age. – Craig Venter
My complaint is that there are more books and news articles than there are primary scientific papers. I am probably the biggest critic of the hypesters, because it’s dangerous when fields get overhyped. – Craig Venter
We can now diagnose diseases that haven’t even manifested in the patient, and may not until the fifth decade of life – if at all. – Craig Venter
People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor. If you think we’re hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes. – Craig Venter
The fact that I have a risk genetically for Alzheimer’s and blindness is not great news. But the reality is that any one of us will have dozens of these risks, and what we have to learn is how to deal with them. – Craig Venter
The trouble is the field of science, medicine, universities, biotech companies – you name it – have been so splintered, layers, sub-divided, hacked that people can spend their entire career studying one tiny little cog of life. – Craig Venter
The Anthropocentic Age – the first age in which humankind is the dominant species on the planet – cuts both ways: it is up to us to destroy or save the planet. We certainly have the ability. – Craig Venter
I think I’m a survivor. I could have suffered at least 100 professional deaths. I could come up with a list of the 100 times I’ve come closest to death, from having pneumonia as a child to car crashes. – Craig Venter
People think they’re making individual decisions for themselves and their family not to get vaccinated. It’s not just an individual choice – you’re a hazard to society. – Craig Venter
The chemistry from compounds in the environment is orders of magnitude more complex than our best chemists can produce. – Craig Venter
Traditional ways of distinguishing populations are irrelevant in terms of genetic code. – Craig Venter
We know virtually all of the genes known to mammals. We do not know all of the combinations. – Craig Venter
I have a blend of klotho gene variants that have been linked with a lower risk for coronary artery disease and stroke and an advantage in longevity. – Craig Venter
