“In the past, geneticists have looked at so-called disease genes, but a lot of people have changes in their genes and don't get these diseases. There have to be other parts of physiology and genetics that compensate.”

American biotechnologist and entrepreneur, Venter co-founded Celera Genomics and led the private Human Genome Project. His work revolutionized genomics with the first commercially assembled human genome and pioneering synthetic biology research.