“People think genes are an absolute cause of traits. But the notion that the genome is the blueprint for humanity is a very bad metaphor. If you think we're hard-wired and deterministic, there should indeed be a lot more genes.”

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.