www.czu.cz ; www.raupp.info

The science of genetics can help lower the cost of health care, increase the
world's food supply and even contribute to homeland security, Time
Magazine's Scientist of the Year for 2000 told an audience of several
hundred at Tuesday's annual meeting of the Community Hospital Foundation,
January 2005 by Karen Ravn .


But progress could be delayed, J. Craig Venter warned, because many people
don't understand basic principles of science and statistics.

Venter, founder and president of the Venter Institute and the J. Craig
Venter Science Foundation, headed the team that published the map of the
human genome -- the entire sequence of genes in humans -- in 2001.

In his keynote address at the Monterey Conference Center, Venter cited colon
cancer as an example where applied genetics can improve health care.

"When people turn 50, there are two things they're supposed to get," he
said, "an AARP card and a colonoscopy. Personally, I was more upset about
the AARP card."

But people who are at high risk for colon cancer shouldn't wait until
they're 50 to start getting colonoscopies. That could already be too late.
The key is for high-risk people to know who they are.

And these days they can. A variety of gene-based tests are available to give
them that information. Once they know, they can take steps to prevent the
disease, or at least catch it at an early stage.

"We need to go in the direction of trying to predict disease and prevent
it," Venter said. "It's the only way we're going to lower the cost of health
care."

And Venter leans in the direction of trying to increase food production by
genetically modifying crops -- as long as it's done carefully.

"Natural tomatoes are small little green things the size of my thumb," he
said. "Just about everything we eat has been genetically modified, but it's
happened over hundreds of years by random, gross experiments."

Many people don't understand that though. So if we change just one gene on
purpose, for reasons based on solid research and proven facts, much of the
public thinks it's dangerous, Venter said.

"We have a really bad education system when it comes to anything that has to
do with basic science."

Venter's latest big project may someday protect the public from other real
dangers -- such as terrorism. The project is the Sorcerer II Expedition, an
ongoing global ocean survey that has already discovered a huge diversity in
micro-organisms that few expected.

For instance, in the Sargasso Sea -- long thought to have little or no life
because it contains few nutrients -- the expedition has found tens of
thousands of species.

These organisms, it turns out, get their energy from sunlight instead of
food.

The diverse marine species the expedition is finding aren't spread uniformly
throughout the seas. Some types of micro-organisms live in warm water while
others prefer cold water, for one thing.

Patterns like that could make homeland security officials take note. In the
future, Venter said, it could be possible to check ships' hulls and identify
where they came from -- friend or foe.

Having found micro-organisms living in extreme conditions in the ocean, does
Venter expect life to be found on other planets?

He'd be delighted to look for some if NASA brings him samples, he said. And
he noted another intriguing possibility: a "reasonable chance" that
earthlings have introduced some life forms into space.

"Every time a commode on a space shuttle gets flushed," he said, "we launch
billions of bacteria out there."

Venter changed the course of science late in the 20th century by developing
a new strategy for discovering genes and then decoding the genomes for
species from fruit flies to humans.

He's making big waves again with the Sorcerer II Expedition.

"We're doing it by sailboat," Venter said, "to show young people that
there's fun and romance in science. And also because I like to sail."

More importantly, he said, "Our goal is to leave as much knowledge as we can
in our wake."

That figures to be a lot.

But Venter might well have given up on science before he ever had a chance
to make his indelible mark on it.

"In grad school in the 1970s," he said, "I was told it would be hard to come
up with something new in biology because everything was already known."

[www.montereyherald.com]

------------------------------------------
Posted to Phorum via PhorumMail