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India Today Conclave

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Day 3 March 15, '08

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Genes are absolutely not our fate: Craig Venter

Damayanti Datta

New Delhi, March 15, 2008

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The human genome — the blueprint of humanity — is made up of three billion base pairs of DNA, split into 24 chromosomes. This information would fill a stack of paperback books 200 ft high, 200 telephone directories 500 pages thick and take a century to recite if done at one letter per second for 24 hours a day. And Dr J. Craig Venter stands in the thick of all things genome.

That's how Professor Sameer K. Brahmachari, Director General of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Delhi, introduced the most frequently-cited biologist of the 21st century during the first session on the last day of the India Today Conclave 2008.

Dr J. Craig Venter, Pioneering Genomic Researcher

Human biology is very complicated, dealing with hundreds of thousands of independent factors, says Venter

In the world of scientific discovery, Venter is known as the man who unravelled the sequence of the only human genome available today—his own. And the audience learnt that Venter is walking up a new path of biology now: synthetic biology (as opposed to synthetic biology, he studies naturally-occurring complex biological systems, focussed on how to build artificial systems for engineering applications).

Way back in 1995, Venter was the hero of the research on sequencing the first genome of living organisms. Five years down the line, prints of the genomes were published. The message was loud and clear: "That we are all different from each other in our genetic code."

Just last September, Venter published the first complete human genomes. "We found that humans differed very dramatically from each other. We are one to three per cent different from each other across this planet," he said, "What we need to do now is capture phenotypical information that would describe each one of you—physically, mentally, historically, medically." That brings environment to the forefront and makes it possible for the first time in history to unravel the debate conclusively—nature or nurture?

So are genes our destiny? "Genes are absolutely not our fate," said Dr Venter. "Our biology is very complicated, dealing with hundreds of thousands of independent factors. And it is going to take a very long time to sort it all out at the pace things are moving."

Genes can give us useful information about increased risk for disease, but in most cases they will not determine the actual cause of the disease, or the actual incidence of somebody getting it. "Most biology will come from the complex interactions from all the proteins and cells working with environmental factors, not driven directly by the genetic code."

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