John Craig Venter, American
biologist and businessman, born on
October 14,
1946, in
Salt Lake City. He received his
bachelor's degree in
biochemistry in
1972, and his
Ph.D. in
physiology and
pharmacology in
1975. He later became president and chief scientific officer of
Celera Genomics, which became famous for running a
Human Genome Project on its own for commercial purposes, using
shotgun sequencing technology in
1999.