Craig Venter

John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and entrepreneur. He was one of the first to sequence the human genome,^[1] and led the team which made the first cell with a synthetic genome (2010).^[2][3]

Craig Venter
Venter in 2007
Born	John Craig Venter (1946-10-14) October 14, 1946 (age 79) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Alma mater	University of California, San Diego
Known for	DNA Human genome Metagenomics Synthetic genomics Shotgun approach to genome sequencing
Awards	Gairdner Award (2002) Nierenberg Prize (2007) Kistler Prize (2008) ENI award (2008) Medal of Science (2008) Dickson Prize (2011) Leeuwenhoek Medal (2015)
Scientific career
Institutions	State University of New York at Buffalo National Institutes of Health J. Craig Venter Institute
Website	J. Craig Venter Institute

Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research and the J. Craig Venter Institute. He now works at his Institute to create synthetic (artificial) biological organisms, and to record genetic diversity in the world's oceans. He was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Craig Venter at 14th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".^[4]

Venter himself recognized his own ADHD behavior in his adolescence, and later found ADHD-linked genes in his own DNA.^[5] In media interviews, Venter has several times said he is an atheist.^[6][7]