The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. in October 2006. The Institute was the result of consolidating four organizations: the Center for the Advancement of Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, and the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation Joint Technology Center. It has facilities in Rockville, Maryland and La Jolla, California.
The Institute studies the societal implications of genomics in addition to genomics itself. The Institute’s research involves genomic medicine; environmental genomic analysis; clean energy; synthetic biology; and ethics, law, and economics. The Institute employs over 200 people, including Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith.
In 2008, scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute, USA, created an entire molecule of a bacteria genome with only chemicals available in their laboratory. Using a variety of short pieces of synthetic genetic material that are available commercially, the scientists pieced together the genes for the bacteria Mycoplasma genitalium. This makes 582,970 base pair M. genitalium bacterial genome the largest chemically defined structure synthesized in the lab, and over 20 times longer than the previous attempts at synthetic DNA molecules.
The team achieved this technical feat by chemically making DNA fragments in the lab and developing new methods for the assembly and reproduction of the DNA segments. After several years of work perfecting chemical assembly, the team found they could use homologous recombination (a process that cells use to repair damage to their chromosomes) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to rapidly build the entire bacterial chromosome from large subassemblies.
“This extraordinary accomplishment is a technological marvel that was only made possible because of the unique and accomplished JCVI team,” said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., President and Founder of JCVI. “Ham Smith, Clyde Hutchison, Dan Gibson, Gwyn Benders, and the others on this team dedicated the last several years to designing and perfecting new methods and techniques that we believe will become widely used to advance the field of synthetic genomics.”
According to en.wikipedia; sciencedaily.com. Source of photos: internet
