Craig Venter

“Energy is probably the most pressing demand on our planet.”

“The problem with existing biology is you change only one or two genes at a time.”

“Human lifespan used to be 30 years, 25 years. But there's no basic, fundamental reason why it has to be short.”

“The gene 'klotho' was named after the Greek Fate purported to spin the thread of life, because it contributes to longevity.”

“Sometime in the future, I am a hundred percent certain scientists will sit down at a computer terminal, design what they want the organism to do, and build it.”

“I was a surf bum wannabe. I left home at age 17 and moved to Southern California to try to take up surfing as a vocation, but this was in 1964, and there was this nasty little thing called the Vietnam War. As a result, I got drafted.”

“My greatest fear is not the abuse of technology but that we will not use it at all.”

“Early on, when you're working in a new area of science, you have to think about all the pitfalls and things that could lead you to believe that you had done something when you hadn't, and, even worse, leading others to believe it.”

“Genome design is going to be a key part of the future. That's why we need fast, cheap, accurate DNA synthesis, so you can make a lot of iterations of something and test them.”

“Right now, oil is being isolated around the globe, and there is a major effort in shipping, trucking and otherwise transporting that oil around to a very finite number of refineries. Biology allows us to make these same fuels in a much more distributed fashion.”

“I am absolutely certain that life can exist in outer space, move around, find a new aqueous environment.”

“Knowing what your parents have gives you hints of things, but your genome is a totally unique combination of and interchange of DNA from your parents. There is no one else like you genetically.”

“I have this idea of trying to catalog all the genes on the planet.”

“We have trouble feeding, providing fresh, clean water, medicines, fuel for the six and a half billion. It's going to be a stretch to do it for nine.”

“Space X's Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars with modules where earthlings can live. My teleporting technology is the number one way those individuals will get new information, new treatments of diseases that will occur on the planet, and new food sources.”

“We can create new ways to create clean water.”

“I turned 65 last year, and each year I get more and more interested in human health. For most people it happens around age 50, but I've always been a slow learner. It's critical in terms of the cost of health care.”

“I see, in the future, bioengineered almost everything you can imagine that we use.”

“The mouse genome is an invaluable tool to interpret the human genome.”

“We're moving from reading the genetic code to writing it.”