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Al Gore to lead global ‘healthy planet, healthy lives’ forum in Switzerland
Switzerland will host some of the world’s top scientists, policymakers, and industry leaders at a major international science event in Montreux this May. The fifth annual Frontiers Forum will welcome speakers including the former US vice president, Nobel Prize awardee and the leading advocate about climate change, Al Gore, renowned cognitive psychologist and best-selling author, Steven Pinker, and Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and...
Inflammation: Friend or Foe?
Thirteen years ago, a team led by J. Craig Venter Institute President, Karen Nelson, PhD, published the first major human microbiome study, radically changing the way we look at human health and the role the microbes that inhabit each of us play in disease. This seminal publication was a tipping point that lead to numerous new areas of research. JCVI Associate Professor, Marcelo Freire, DDS, PhD, DMSc, continues to lead the field as he investigates the critical role the human...
Southern African Genome Diversity Study
Overview Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute have a long history of leadership in human genomic research. Since the work in the early 1990's by Dr. Venter and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in describing expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to rapidly discover human genes, to the sequence and analysis of the first draft human genome published in 2001, to the first complete diploid human genome published in 2007, JCVI scientists remain committed to research into the human...
New Bioinformatics Hub at UChicago Enables Next-Gen Infectious Disease Research
The most valuable weapon against the next deadly disease outbreak may be data. Scientists aiming to stop or prevent the spread of viral or bacterial pathogens need rapid, comprehensive access to datasets on their genomics, structure, function and more, combined with computational tools to quickly analyze data and make predictions using artificial intelligence techniques. That critical service will be provided by the new Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center (BV-BRC), based...
Venter Institute Researchers Tackle the Growing Concern of Antibiotic Resistant Bacterial Infections with Genomic, Phage Approaches
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that each year in the United States two million people acquire antibiotic resistant bacterial infections that lead to 23,000 deaths. Antibiotic resistance affects people of all ages and seriously impacts the healthcare, veterinary, and agriculture industries, making it one of the world’s most urgent public health crises. Because of this, the CDC has labeled certain multidrug-resistant bacteria, “superbugs.” Derrick Fouts,...
2019 Summer Internship Program
The 2019 Summer Internship Program which wrapped up in August was another rousing success at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Faculty and staff in both the Rockville (MD) and La Jolla (CA) campuses mentored and trained 25 students (high school, undergraduate, and graduate students) from across the country in cutting-edge technologies related to the biomedical field. High school students participated in the internship for 8-weeks and undergraduate and graduate students took part...
J. Craig Venter Institute and UC San Diego Develop Phage Treatment as Potential Cure for Alcoholic Liver Disease
(La Jolla, California)—November 13, 2019—Scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), a not-for-profit genomic research organization, UC San Diego, and a variety of international and national academic centers published a paper today in the journal Nature describing how alcoholic hepatitis may be cured through the use of bacteriophages (phages), to target specific strains of Enterococcus faecalis, the bacterium responsible for this condition. Certain E. faecalis strains secrete a...
San Diego Unified STEAM Leadership Series and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies Present: “The Places Your Imagination Takes You”—The 5th Annual Women in Biotech at the Salk
SAN DIEGO—On Wednesday, November 13th, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies will host the 5th Annual Women in Biotech with the San Diego Unified STEAM Leadership Series. Dr. Karen J. Nelson, president of the J. Craig Venter Institute will keynote, followed by an all-women panel from Illumina, the non-profit Match Your Need, and Salk Institute—300 young women from eight San Diego High schools will be welcomed by District Superintendent Cindy Marten, as part of the 18th event in the...
The JCVI Genomic Frontier Fund
As we complete our 26th year as a private genomic research institution, we are still just as excited as we were in the very beginning to be making new discoveries, potentially ones that will change our society for the better. The knowledge gained from our study of DNA, or as Dr. Venter likes to call it, “the software of life”, has exponentially accelerated the progress of science and medicine. However, we are still just scratching the surface of understanding life and many more...
Accelerating the Pace of Discovery with Your Support
Advancing Genomic Research The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has a long history of pioneering genomic research and successful grant funding for this research. However, the biggest scientific breakthroughs developed at JCVI — including sequencing the first genome of a free-living organism, sequencing the first microbiome, and constructing the first synthetic cell — were funded with philanthropic support. We have a variety of ways you can become a partner in advancing genomics for a...