Not that Venter enjoys universal acclaim, especially among fellow scientists, some of whom see him as a buccaneer trying to hijack the very essence of humanity for profit. And, cautions bioethicist Gail Geller of the Bioethics Institute at Johns Hopkins University, the deciphering extends "a self-perpetuating view of the importance of genes." Beyond the scientific and ethical issues, though, there is the issue of Venter himself. "I wouldn't call him the most diplomatic person I've ever met," concedes his wife, molecular biologist Claire Fraser, 45. And unlike most scientists, Venter lives like a prince of commerce, driving a black Porsche and amassing 1.4 million shares of Celera stock. Venter was a surfer in Newport Beach, Calif., in 1965 when he was drafted, and he says service as a medical corpsman in Vietnam changed him: "I turned 21 in Vietnam. How can you not think about the shortness of life?" Both Celera and its counterparts at the Human Genome Project still have much work to do. "This year we determined all the spelling of the letters in the human chromosome," explains Venter. "We are now in the process of beginning to determine what those letters mean."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
