Media Center

02-Oct-2024
Press Release

J. Craig Venter Institute awarded 5-year, $5M grant to lead Center for Innovative Recycling and Circular Economy (CIRCLE)

CIRCLE is one of the six new NSF Global Centers focused on advancing bioeconomy research to solve global challenges

19-Sep-2024
Press Release

Scientists discover molecular predictors of toxic algal blooms that pose health risk, ecological and economic harm

Genes in the algae Pseudo-nitzschia genus have been identified that act as a warning beacon for a dangerous neurotoxin

18-Sep-2024
Collaborator Release

Prebys Introduces 2024 Grant Funding to Enhance Career Opportunities for Youth Across San Diego County

Organizations Receiving Part of the $5.89 Million Foster a Thriving San Diego Workforce

Prebys funds 24 grantees as part of a commitment to ensuring San Diego County youth are thriving and actively engaged in their communities

21-May-2024
Collaborator Release

Phytoplankton Genetically Sequenced at Sea for the First Time

Viking’s Initiative with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and J. Craig Venter Institute Aims to Provide Better Understanding of the “World’s Lungs”

01-May-2024

Tae Seok Moon, Ph.D. and Nan Zhu, Ph.D. join J. Craig Venter Institute faculty

JCVI continues to actively recruit faculty to expand core research areas, including human health and synthetic biology

18-Apr-2024
Press Release

Groundbreaking study reveals oral microbiome’s role in immune response and COVID-19 severity

Newly developed AI model shows that saliva is a better predictor of COVID-19 severity than existing blood tests

21-Mar-2024
Press Release

Scientists develop method to efficiently construct single-copy human artificial chromosomes (HACs)

This new tool will allow scientists to work in mammalian systems in ways only previously available in bacteria and yeast

HACs have wide potential research applications to synthetic biologists and may eventually aid in delivering DNA in clinical applications

19-Mar-2024
Collaborator Release

With combined funding of 3,000,000 euros the BBVA Foundation’s Fundamentos Program supports five innovative exploratory research projects on core questions in basic science

JCVI work supported through The Physical Basis of Cell Division in Minimal and Synthetic cells (MINCELL) Fundamentos Program

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2019 Summer Internship Program

The 2019 Summer Internship Program which wrapped up in August was another rousing success at the J. Craig Venter Institute.  Faculty and staff in both the Rockville (MD) and La Jolla (CA) campuses mentored and trained  25 students (high school, undergraduate, and graduate students)...

Diatoms Have Found a Way to Pirate Bacterial Iron Sources

In large regions of the world’s oceans, photosynthesis struggles to operate because a key ingredient is missing. Many of the proteins involved in harvesting energy from sunlight require iron atoms to function, but iron is hard to find in seawater. Most of the ocean is far removed from...

The JCVI Genomic Frontier Fund

As we complete our 26th year as a private genomic research institution, we are still just as excited as we were in the very beginning to be making new discoveries, potentially ones that will change our society for the better.  The knowledge gained from our study of DNA, or as Dr. Venter...

New Sequencing Technologies Enable Better and Faster Understanding of the Human Microbiome

Humans have trillions of different species of microorganisms living inside and on the human body. These microbes colonize on the skin, gut, oral cavity, vagina, internal organs, and circulating fluids, and are called the human microbiome. The human microbiome plays profound roles in health...

Human Microbiome Research has Massive Potential for Health Applications

Thirteen years ago, a team led by J. Craig Venter Institute President, Karen Nelson, Ph.D., published the first major human microbiome study, radically changing the way we look at human health and the role the microbes that inhabit each of us play in disease.  This seminal publication...

Scientist Spotlight: Lauren Oldfield

Since high school, Lauren Oldfield, PhD found that science was her calling. It started with a love of reading encouraged by her mom and grandmother, both avid readers, and weekly trips to the public library. Books by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston were staples in her grandmother’s...

When Starved, Dangerous Oral Bacteria Hang On

J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) postdoctoral fellow, Jonathon Baker, PhD and a team of researchers from JCVI, University of Washington, the University of California, Los Angeles, and The Forsyth Institute recently published their findings from the first study to examine the ecological dynamics...

No More Needles! Using Microbiome and Synthetic Biology Advances to Better Treat Type 1 Diabetes

Learn about exciting advances made by JCVI researchers Yo Suzuki and John Glass who are on a quest to better understand and treat Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Currently T1D is managed by injecting insulin to manage blood glucose levels. Drs. Suzuki and Glass want to change that by creating a...

How to Bake a (Fungal) Turkey

From the kitchen of Stephanie Mounaud, Scientific Project Manager at JCVI Ingredients Media base (see media recipe) Agar Aspergillus terreus (multiple strains) Aspergillus niger Aspergillus fumigatus Aspergillus oryzae...

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17-Jan-2024
Grow by Ginkgo

Getting Under the Skin

Amid an insulin crisis, one project aims to engineer microscopic insulin pumps out of a skin bacterium.

24-Oct-2023
Noema

Planet Microbe

There are more organisms in the sea, a vital producer of oxygen on Earth, than planets and stars in the universe.

29-Aug-2023
Vanity Fair

The Next Climate Change Calamity?: We’re Ruining the Microbiome, According to Human-Genome-Pioneer Craig Venter

In a new book (coauthored with Venter), a Vanity Fair contributor presents the oceanic evidence that human activity is altering the fabric of life on a microscopic scale.

21-Aug-2023
GEN

Lessons from the Minimal Cell

“Despite reducing the sequence space of possible trajectories, we conclude that streamlining does not constrain fitness evolution and diversification of populations over time. Genome minimization may even create opportunities for evolutionary exploitation of essential genes, which are commonly observed to evolve more slowly.”

09-Aug-2023
Quanta Magazine

Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve

By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.

15-May-2023
Science

Privacy concerns sparked by human DNA accidentally collected in studies of other species

Two research teams warn that human genomic “bycatch” can reveal private information

10-May-2023
New York Times

Scientists Unveil a More Diverse Human Genome

The “pangenome,” which collated genetic sequences from 47 people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, could greatly expand the reach of personalized medicine.

10-May-2023
Nature

First human ‘pangenome’ aims to catalogue genetic diversity

Researchers release draft results from an ongoing effort to capture the entirety of human genetic variation.

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