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J. Craig Venter Institute awarded $200,000 St. Baldrick’s Foundation grant to advance childhood leukemia treatment
LA JOLLA, California—July 23, 2026—The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) today announced it has received a two-year, $200,000 Emily Beazley Kures for Kids Fund St. Baldrick’s Research Grant from St. Baldrick’s Childhood Cancer Research Foundation, the largest charity funder of childhood cancer research grants in the U.S. The grant, announced as part of St. Baldrick’s 2026 grant cycle, will support research led by Associate Professor Nan Zhu, Ph.D., a researcher at JCVI, into new...
J. Craig Venter Legacy Fund
Dr. Venter transformed our understanding of life through extraordinary vision, scientific courage, and an unwavering belief in what discovery could make possible. The J. Craig Venter Legacy Fund empowers the exceptional scientists at JCVI to carry that spirit forward, pursuing bold, independent research with the potential to transform human health, protect our planet, and shape the future of science. (function(w, d, s, id){var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if...
The Data Exploration & Analysis Portal (DEAP)
The Data Exploration & Analysis Portal (DEAP) is a web-based platform designed to help researchers efficiently access, explore, and analyze data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and the Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study through the NIH Brain Development Cohorts Data Hub.DEAP provides intuitive tools for exploring dataset metadata, including a tree-based filter that organizes variables by research domain and a data dictionary explorer that allows...
Study finds DNA carrying antibiotic resistance genes can remain functional after common lab decontamination steps
La Jolla, California—May 8, 2026—A new study in the journal Cell Reports Methods raises a practical biosafety question that begins after an experiment ends: What happens to engineered DNA once a culture has been decontaminated and discarded?Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) tested two of the most common decontamination steps used before disposing of bacterial cultures—bleach treatment and autoclaving—and found that antibiotic resistance genes carried on engineered DNA...
J. Craig Venter, genomics pioneer and founder of JCVI and Diploid Genomics, Inc., dies at 79
La Jolla, California—April 29, 2026—The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) announced that J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., the Institute’s founder, board chair, and chief executive officer, died today in San Diego following a brief hospitalization for unexpected side effects that arose from treatment of recently diagnosed cancer.Dr. Venter was a visionary scientific leader whose work helped define modern genomics and launch the field of synthetic biology. He drove scientific and technological change...
This Earth Day, I Stopped Studying Waste and Started Picking It Up
Hollywood Cemetery is part of the SimplyGreen vision led by Shayda Frost and Timothy Amoui, a reimagining of abandoned spaces into places of sustainability, reflection, and community. It's a reminder that environmental work doesn't just happen in pristine landscapes, it happens in the overlooked, the forgotten, and the in-between. This Earth Day, that vision came to life as I joined Chattahoochee Riverkeeper for a river cleanup woven directly through the landscape of Hollywood Cemetery. ...
Tiny, abundant ocean alga shows how life thrives where sunlight and iron are scarce
LA JOLLA, California—June 22, 2026—Many ocean ecosystems have a “hidden green zone” below the surface where chlorophyll—an indicator of photosynthesis—reaches a local peak. Scientists call this band the subsurface chlorophyll maximum layer or SCML. It is dimmer than surface waters and is often shaped by nutrient gradients, making it an important, yet comparatively understudied, part of the ocean’s biological engine. In a new study, published in the journal Nature...
Team simulates a living cell that grows and divides
A simulated cell in the early stages of division. Left half shows cytoplasm (blue cubes), mRNA degradation machinery molecules (pink), and sugar transporters (brown). Right half adds the membrane (green) and ribosomes (yellow/red). Graphic by Zane Thornburg, as part of Figure 1 of the paper, “Bringing the genetically minimal cell to life on a computer in 4D.” Journal: Cell. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.02.009 CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — By simulating the life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell —...
Genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter launches Diploid Genomics, Inc. (DGI), ushering in a new era in human genomics
La Jolla, CA—January 22, 2026—Diploid Genomics, Inc. (DGI), an AI-driven advanced genomics analytics company, launches in partnership with Healthier Capital, a leading health-tech venture capital firm, under the leadership of genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. DGI is developing the next‑generation discovery and diagnostics platform for complex and deadly diseases, making future health outcomes more predictable, measurable, and actionable. DGI plans to employ advanced AI models,...
Scientists engineer microbial teams to transform mixed plastics into valuable products
La Jolla, California—December 11, 2025—Each year, the world produces more than 400 million metric tons of plastic, much of which ends up in landfills, incinerators, or the natural environment. While recycling programs exist, they are often limited in scope and effectiveness, especially when it comes to the most difficult category of waste: mixed plastics. Now, a team of researchers led by Tae Seok Moon at the J. Craig Venter Institute and Moonshot Bio, Inc. has developed pioneering...