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Energy Department Awards $9 Million for Energy Related Genomic Research
April 24, 2003 ROCKVILLE, MD -- Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today that the department will increase its funding to the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA) for research to better understand microbial communities and to develop new, biological methods to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and to produce hydrogen. The department will fund IBEA, headed by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., $3 million per year for the next three years. This is in addition to...
Ancient noncoding elements conserved in the human genome.
Cartilaginous fishes represent the living group of jawed vertebrates that diverged from the common ancestor of human and teleost fish lineages about 530 million years ago. We generated approximately 1.4x genome sequence coverage for a cartilaginous fish, the elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii), and compared this genome with the human genome to identify conserved noncoding elements (CNEs). The elephant shark sequence revealed twice as many CNEs as were identified by whole-genome comparisons...
The human noncoding genome defined by genetic diversity.
Understanding the significance of genetic variants in the noncoding genome is emerging as the next challenge in human genomics. We used the power of 11,257 whole-genome sequences and 16,384 heptamers (7-nt motifs) to build a map of sequence constraint for the human species. This build differed substantially from traditional maps of interspecies conservation and identified regulatory elements among the most constrained regions of the genome. Using new Hi-C experimental data, we describe a...
Unlocking the Mysteries of the Microbiome
In the early 2000s, JCVI researchers pioneered in the exploration of the human microbiome, the community of microbes that live in and on the human body. Originally while at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR, now part of JCVI) Drs. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith were awarded a grant from DARPA to examine the microbes found in the human gut. This work was carried out by researchers at JCVI and published in 2006 in Science. While this team had previously published 16S surveys of the...
Coronavirus Research
Overview The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has been involved in viral sequencing and analysis for more than 25 years, and coronavirus research for more than 15. This work has aided human health through vaccine development; improved food security by protecting crops and livestock; and provides critical data and analysis to researchers around the world. The Institute has also pioneered a synthetic biology platform which is now integral to fighting current and emerging viral threats....
ANDES: Statistical tools for the ANalyses of DEep Sequencing.
The advancements in DNA sequencing technologies have allowed researchers to progress from the analyses of a single organism towards the deep sequencing of a sample of organisms. With sufficient sequencing depth, it is now possible to detect subtle variations between members of the same species, or between mixed species with shared biomarkers, such as the 16S rRNA gene. However, traditional sequencing analyses of samples from largely homogeneous populations are often still based on multiple...
In the News
We docked in the Volvo Ocean Race Village for a week. It was very exciting to be so close to all of the activities surrounding the race. Over the week Dr. Venter and Karolina and I were interviewed by many local and national TV, radio stations and newspapers. Here are some links to a few of the news stories: Story on Xconomy; Story on TV4play.se. Dr. Venter was also part of a half-day symposium moderated by his good friend Dr. Norrby and attended by the King of Sweden. After the lectures...
Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) Training
In September 6-8, 2017, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) , NIAID PATRIC Bioinformatics Resource Center/University of Chicago and NIAID Genomic Center for Infectious Diseases at J. Craig Venter Institute participated in three days training in Delhi, India for Indo-US Workshop on Genomics and Bioinformatics to Explore Human Microbiome Ecology in Health and Diseases. The Translational Health Science...
About Robert M. Friedman
Robert Friedman is adjunct faculty at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Friedman directs JCVI's Policy Center, helps to facilitate JCVI’s affiliation with UC San Diego, and is also active in several projects ongoing in the Institute's Environmental Genomics Group. Prior to joining the Venter Institute, Friedman was Vice President for Research at The H.
Sequence-independent Amplification of Rotaviruses for High-throughput Next-generation Sequencing
Anthony K. Bennici1, Karla M. Stucker1, Asmik Akopov1, Nadia Fedorova1, Rebecca A. Halpin1, Timothy B. Stockwell2, David E. Wentworth 1Virology Group and 2Informatics Department, J. Craig Venter Institute, Rockville, MD 20850 Rotavirus is a segmented dsRNA virus that causes gastroenteritis and is the primary cause of severe pediatric diarrhea, which results in over half a million deaths per year globally. There are eight known species of rotaviruses (A-H) that infect humans...