A quick writeup by Robin Cook on a conceptual guy making repeated breakthroughs in different fields, and in the process landing twice on the Time100 list of the world’s most influential people. Cook writes in part:
There have always been two kinds of innovators: those who have an incandescent idea that changes the world and those who keep having them. Increasingly, J. Craig Venter, 61, is establishing himself as a member of that second group.
Already admired as the scientist who conceived of the high-speed, “shotgun” approach to DNA sequencing, he was honored last year with a place on the TIME 100 list for his studies involving biodiversity in the oceans. This year he’s back for the startling achievement of having built the first synthetic genome.
