Distinguished Public Lecture: "Genomics - from humans to the environment" by J Craig Venter

Past Event

Date
 25 October 2007, 1:00am

Location
 The Sheldonian
Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AZ

In the second of the Distinguished Public Lecture Series run by the James Martin 21st Century School, Dr Craig Venter will discuss his work at the J Craig Venter Institute and its implications for the future of our culture, society and science. The Institute's projects include developing new understanding of human disease at the DNA level, running the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition to understand microbial diversity in the world’s oceans, and finding new ways of tackling environmental issues, especially the production of new biological sources of energy. One of its many goals is to engineer microbes that can produce biological sources of fuel. Dr Venter and his team believe that genomics is the field of science that has the power to transform the world around us.

In this year alone, the J Craig Venter Institute will have announced the discovery of more than six million new genes and thousands of new protein families from organisms found in sea water, the world’s first successful transfer of an entire genome from one bacterium cell to another, the completion of a new human genome analysis and, likely, the creation of the world’s first synthetically built microbe.

The Lecture will be Chaired by Robert McCredie, Lord May of Oxford, OM AC Kt, who holds a Professorship jointly at Oxford University and Imperial College, London and is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. Lord May was President of The Royal Society from 2000 until 2005, and before that Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the UK Office of Science and Technology (1995-2000). He is also a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation and of the Cambridge University Gates Trust, and until recently Chaired the Trustees of the Natural History Museum.

The lecture is hosted by the James Martin 21st Century School in association with Science Oxford and Penguin Books. Craig Venter's autobiography, “A Life Decoded” is published by Penguin Books.

No reservations are required for this event. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.