Craig Venter

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“The Only Threat From Biotech Is That Humans Will Not Adequately And Quickly Use It”

October 10, 2015 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

In an h+ opinion piece, futurist Harry J. Bentham says many true things about synthetic biology, a sector of science that could go a long way toward creating resource abundance and medical miracles.

That said, I have two disagreements with him: 

  1. Bentham’s contention that businesspeople are hampering synthbio’s development due to greed, instead focusing on manufacturing trifling products to make a quick buck, seems off the mark. Let’s face it: Plenty of people have no affinity or talent for this type of work. But more than at any time in history, many major American technological companies aren’t driven mainly by profits but also by impact. In fact, “changing the world” is the new coin of the realm. I doubt in a different age that Google would be trying to create a purely private Bell Labs (which was essentially a government-sponsored monopoly) as it is with Google X, with many projects aimed at helping health and environment. Other such companies are sponsoring R&D in similar ventures, also hoping for breakthroughs. Whether they’ll be successful in landing these moonshots is another matter, but they are trying.
  2. While synthetic bio holds great promise and will likely be necessary at some point for the survival of humans, saying it has “no adequate risk” if it’s utilized isn’t accurate.

From Bentham:

Although discovery and invention continue to stun us all on an almost daily basis, such things do not happen as quickly or in as utilitarian a way as they should. And this lack of progress is deliberate. As the agenda is driven by businessmen who adhere to the times they live in, driven more by the desire for wealth and status than helping mankind, the goal of endless profit directly blocks the path to abolish scarcity, illness and death.

Today, J. Craig Venter’s great discoveries of how to sequence or synthesize entire genomes of living biological specimens in the field of synthetic biology (synthbio) represent a greater power than the hydrogen bomb. It is a power we must embrace. In my opinion, these discoveries are certainly more capable of transforming civilization and the globe for the better. In Life at the Speed of Light (2013), that is essentially Venter’s own thesis.

And contrary to science fiction films, the only threat from biotech is that humans will not adequately and quickly use it. Business leaders are far more interested in profiting from people’s desire for petty products, entertainment and glamour than curing cancer or creating unlimited resources to feed civilization. But who can blame them? It is far too risky for someone in their position to commit to philanthropy than to stay a step ahead of their competitors.•

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“Synthetic Biology Is Going To Affect Medicine, Chemicals, Food”

August 28, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

An excerpt from Alison Beard’s Harvard Business Review interview with biologist Craig Venter, who wants to engineer designer bugs to cure all our ills:

“Question:

Genomics was supposed to revolutionize the drug and health care industries, and you said it’s just beginning to do that. What industries do you expect to revolutionize with synthetic biology?

Craig Venter:

At Synthetic Genomics, we’re chemically writing the DNA for entire chromosomes to design cells, and it’s hard to envision a field that won’t be impacted in some way. We just announced a deal to produce large amounts of omega-3s from algae cells to create a healthy supplement. We’re trying to design cells that produce the chemical that is the basis of plastic bottles; it currently comes only from oil. We’re designing new vaccines: The U.S. government now has stockpiles of the first synthetic vaccine against H7N9 that we made with Novartis, so we’re ahead of a potential pandemic strain. Synthetic biology is going to affect medicine, chemicals, food.

Question:

People associate you with ‘commercializing’ science.

Craig Venter:

You know, before World War II, it was primarily private industry and philanthropy that funded science. Afterward, we went into this golden age of massive funding from the U.S. government, but now, percentage-wise, we’re in a dismal period of funding, and policies are limiting creativity. So business is the way to drive science forward, and people are finding there’s no difference in the goals or outcomes, because for science to impact society, it has to be economically viable: The medicines have to work and be widely available. Private investment is a way for breakthroughs to keep happening when the government is letting us down.”

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“There’s Not A Single Aspect Of Human Life That Doesn’t Have The Potential To Be Totally Transformed By These Technologies”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

An excerpt from Richard C. Lewontin’s just-published New York of Review of Books piece “The New Synthetic Biology: Who Gains?” which looks at recent writing on the field, which will not ultimately be contained by regulation and will be messy:

“In modern times Craig Venter, the head of the J. Craig Venter Institute, announced the creation of a living, functioning, self-reproducing artificial bacterial cell containing a laboratory-produced DNA sequence that, according to Laurie Garrett’s Foreign Affairs essay ‘Biology’s Brave New World,‘ ‘moved, ate, breathed, and replicated itself.’

An element that was not yet present in the early-nineteenth-century interest in the artificial creation of life was the possibility of great financial profit. Biotechnology was still a century and a half in the future. Garrett characterizes Venter not only as the most powerful man in biotechnology but as the richest. The J. Craig Venter Institute has already worked with fuel companies and the pharmaceutical industry to create microorganisms that could produce new fuels and vaccines.

What did concern those in the nineteenth century who imagined the possibility of the artificial creation of life, a concern that is at the core of Shelley’s Frankenstein, is the nemesis that is the inevitable consequence of the creators’ hubris. We now face the same problem on a huge scale. In an interview in 2009, quoted by Garrett, Venter declared, ‘There’s not a single aspect of human life that doesn’t have the potential to be totally transformed by these technologies in the future.’ Not a single aspect! Does that mean he is promising me that I might literally live forever?

Nothing in history suggests that those who control and profit from material production can really be depended upon to devote the needed foresight, creativity, and energy to protect us from the possible negative effects of synthetic biology. In cases where there is a conflict between the immediate and the long-range consequences or between public and private good, how can that conflict be resolved? Can the state be counted on to intervene when a private motivation conflicts with public benefit, and who will intervene when the state itself threatens the safety and general welfare of its citizens? Garrett provides a frightening real-life example.

In 2011 two scientists, one from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam and one from the University of Wisconsin, independently reported that they had turned a bird flu virus, H5N1, which could very occasionally be transmitted from birds to humans, causing their death in about 60 percent of cases, into a strain that could be directly passed easily between laboratory mammals. Were this virus then capable of infecting humans, a catastrophe would occur, judging from the infamous flu epidemic of 1918, which killed more than 50 million people, about 2.5 percent of the world’s population.”

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Frost-Venter, 2012:

 

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“We Wait Until Technology Is Upon Us Before We Act”

April 7, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Ethics, let alone laws, can’t keep up with the accelerating pace of science and technology. Growth is exponential and often unexpected, and different nations have varying rules of engagement. It’s difficult to come up with any universal policy. Biotech, in particular, will be messy and dangerous. From a post about the implications of synthetic yeast by Julian Savulescu at Practical Ethics:

“Back in 2010, I blogged about Craig Venter’s creation of the first synthetic organism, Synthia, a bacteria.

Now, in 2014, the next step has been made by a team at John Hopkins University, the use of synthetic biology in yeast, which, whilst still a simple organism, has a similar cell structure to humans (and other more complex organisms): a nuclei, chromosomes and organelles. The engineered yeast has been reproduced to over 100 generations, passing on its new DNA.

The pace is breathtaking. Moore’s law describes a phenomenon in computing, where computer capacity (so far) doubles every two years. Kurzweil uses Moore’s law to predict the: a state where humans no longer control, or even comprehend, the progress that technology continues to make.

It’s difficult to measure scientific progress in the same way as computer power, but it’s clear that leaps in progress are now measured in years, not decades. Yet still we wait until technology is upon us before we act.

Consider a parallel technology: cloning. The earliest intimations of cloning were perhaps in 1885, when Hans Dreisch successfully divided sea urchin embryos. Yet it was not until Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1998 that we began to become concerned and consider deeply thoughts on human cloning. A moratorium on human cloning research was put in place in the US, and a ban in Europe. In industry, cloned animals are used in farming already, yet the EC and UK governments are apparently at loggerheads about whether to allow this to continue.

Synthetic biology, I believe, has far greater potential than straight forward cloning. But this potential includes great harms as well as great benefits.“

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“[We Will Be] Sending Robots Into Space To Read The Sequence Of Alien Life Forms And Replicate Them Back On Earth”

October 7, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Craig Venter who says outlandish things and makes them seem possible–like here and here–thinks we’ll soon be able to print alien life forms. From the Telegraph:

“Dr Craig Venter, who helped map the human genome, created the world’s first synthetic lifeform, using chemicals and inserting DNA into the cell of a bacteria.

He believes scientists will soon be to do the same, designing basic organisms to include features useful in farming or medicine, as well as sending robots into space to read the sequence of alien life forms and replicate them back on Earth.

Writing in his latest book, Life at the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life, he says: “In years to come it will be increasingly possible to create a wide variety of [synthetic] cells from computer-designed software.'”

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“For The First Time Now, We Can Actually Design Life In A Computer”

December 24, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

David Frost just did an interview with Craig Venter, the biologist who was the subject of Wil S. Hylton’s excellent 2012 New York Times Magazine profile.

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“There Will Be DNA Life Forms There”

October 18, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Two teams hope to send DNA-sequencing machines to Mars to prove the Red Planet harbors life. One of the groups is led by Craig Venter, who believes in building better bugs. From Antonio Regalado at MIT Technology Review:

“Although neither team yet has a berth on Mars rocket, their plans reflect the belief that the simplest way to prove there is life on Mars is to send a DNA sequencing machine.

‘There will be DNA life forms there,’ Venter predicted Tuesday in New York, where he was speaking at the Wired Health Conference.

Venter said researchers working with him have already begun tests at a Mars-like site in the Mojave Desert. Their goal, he said, is to demonstrate a machine capable of autonomously isolating microbes from soil, sequencing their DNA, and then transmitting the information to a remote computer, as would be required on an unmanned Mars mission. Heather Kowalski, a spokeswoman for Venter, confirmed the existence of the project but said the prototype system was ‘not yet 100 percent robotic.'”

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“Each Of The Bugs Will Have A Mission”

May 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The first three graphs of Wil S. Hylton’s excellent New York Times Magazine article about Craig Venter, who wants to make tiny machines that breathe:

“In the menagerie of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create. He will mix them up in his private laboratory from bits and pieces of DNA, and then he will release them into the air and the water, into smokestacks and oil spills, hospitals and factories and your house.

Each of the bugs will have a mission. Some will be designed to devour things, like pollution. Others will generate food and fuel. There will be bugs to fight global warming, bugs to clean up toxic waste, bugs to manufacture medicine and diagnose disease, and they will all be driven to complete these tasks by the very fibers of their synthetic DNA.

Right now, Venter is thinking of a bug. He is thinking of a bug that could swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel. He is thinking of a bug that could live in a factory and gobble exhaust and fart fresh air. He may not appear to be thinking about these things. He may not appear to be thinking at all. He may appear to be riding his German motorcycle through the California mountains, cutting the inside corners so close that his kneepads skim the pavement. This is how Venter thinks. He also enjoys thinking on the deck of his 95-foot sailboat, halfway across the Pacific Ocean in a gale, and while snorkeling naked in the Sargasso Sea surrounded by Portuguese men-of-war. When Venter was growing up in San Francisco, he would ride his bicycle to the airport and race passenger jets down the runway. As a Navy corpsman in Vietnam, he spent leisurely afternoons tootling up the coast in a dinghy, under a hail of enemy fire.” (Thanks Browser.)

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