J. Craig Venter Institute - Current Activities

Current Activities

JCVI is in the top ranks of scientific institutions worldwide. In 2011, the SCImago Research Group, based in Spain, ranked JCVI 6th worldwide on its Excellence Rate scale, and 10th on its Normalized Impact scale, taking into account "scientific impact, thematic specialization, output size and international collaboration networks". The JCVI website lists 1495 peer-reviewed publications from 1991 through early 2012.

On its website, JCVI lists nine research/work groups:

• Genomic Medicine. The focus of this group is to provide an improved molecular understanding of human health and disease. A highly-publicized accomplishment was their publication of the first diploid human genome, i.e. the genome of a single individual (J. Craig Venter) in which both sets of chromosomes were sequenced. Teams within this group are working on a protein-protein interaction map of E. coli, analyzing the genetic variants associated with disease as a step towards personalized medicine, and studying human microbial flora, both at the single-cell level and at the microbiome level as part of the Human Microbiome Project.
• Infectious Disease. This group is studying the three-dimensional structure of the proteins of pathogenic organisms, sequencing and genotyping organisms considered potential agents of bioterrorism, studying the mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis, studying viral genomics, and providing a centralized facility to the research community with resources to conduct genomics research on pathogens and disease vectors.
• Microbial & Environmental Genomics. This group is performing comparative genomic and proteomic surveys of Antarctic phytoplankton, sampling and cataloging life in the world's oceans, providing tools for the research community to access all of the publicly available bacterial genome sequences to date, and sequencing the genomes of hundreds of individual marine microbes.
• Plant Genomics. This group is studying the functions of plant genes, performing comparative genetic analysis, and tracking complex metabolic pathways, with particular attention to important food crops and industrial feedstock crops.
• Synthetic Biology & Bioenergy. This group is studying ways to engineer organisms to produce various kinds of biological products and renewable fuels. A highly publicized accomplishment was the complete assembly of a 1.08 million base pair Mycoplasma mycoides genome, which was then inserted into a cell to create the first cell with a completely synthetic genome.
• Policy Center. The mission of this group is to understand the implications of genomics science for society. This group aims to help decision makers understand and anticipate the impact of 21st century biology, the goal being to enhance positive and avoid negative outcomes of policy decisions.
• Informatics. This is one of the largest teams at JCVI, and includes software engineers and bioinformatics experts that develop and maintain the computational tools needed to study the vast amount of data generated by genomics methods.
• Sequencing. The high throughput sequencing activities are supported by the Informatics department and a technical team spanning multiple disciplines of biology, computer science and software engineering.
• Education. This group supports a variety of school and community educational initiatives.