Media Center

01-Jun-2023
Collaborator Release

Family resemblance: How T cells could fight many coronaviruses at once

LJI researchers work to head off future pandemics by uncovering key similarities between SARS-CoV-2 and common cold coronaviruses

29-Mar-2023
Collaborator Release

Scientists aim to develop vaccine against all deadly coronaviruses

$8 million NIH grant supports effort to avert next pandemic

24-Mar-2023
Collaborator Release

What are the Drivers of Chronic Infectious Disease?

A $1 million grant from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation will launch a UC San Diego-led national effort to more deeply study tissue samples from patients with conditions ranging from long COVID-19 and relapsed Lyme disease to chronic fatigue syndrome

The Tissue Analysis Pipeline will be directed by scientists at UC San Diego and the J. Craig Venter Institute

23-Feb-2023
Collaborator Release

BullFrog AI Partners with J. Craig Venter Institute to Develop Colorectal Cancer Therapeutic

Collaboration seeks to develop an oncolytic virus that incorporates a novel, precision-targeted approach to improve safety and efficacy

26-Jan-2023
Collaborator Release

Therapeutic Potential of Bizarre ‘Jumbo’ Viruses Tapped for $10M HHMI Emerging Pathogens Project

UC San Diego leads initiative aiming to develop bacteriophages as solutions for antibiotic resistance crisis

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Fighting Back Against Flu

The 1918 influenza pandemic, which affected 500 million people globally and caused 50-100 million deaths, was the most severe pandemic in recorded history. Over the course of the last 100 years, advances in science and medicine have provided the tools to address influenza much more...

Scientist Spotlight: Marcelo Freire

Marcelo Freire, an associate professor in the Genomic Medicine and Infectious Disease Department at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), is currently working on decoding immune-microbiome genes and interactions. Growing up in Brazil and a curious person by nature, he often found himself...

Tracking Enterovirus D68, Cause of a Polio-like Illness in Some Patients

The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has played a vital role in defining the diversity of contemporary strains of human enteroviruses by using state-of-the art sequencing technologies, bioinformatics analyses, and in vitro and in vivo modeling.

Every Day is World Food Day at JCVI

World Food Day is a global initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to ensure that people have access to enough high-quality food to lead active and healthy lives. After a period of decline, world hunger is on the rise again. Today, over 820 million people...

Mold Is Everywhere and Impacts You

When most people think about mold or fungi, food spoilage, a damp basement, or mushrooms come to mind. What you may not realize is how pervasive this branch of life is. Fungi is everywhere, from the ground you walk on to the air you breathe, and accounts for an estimated 25% of all biomass...

Scientists Discover Genetic Basis for Toxic Algal Blooms

Scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego have discovered how certain types of algal blooms become toxic, producing a harmful substance known as domoic acid. Microscopic view of domoic acid...

Ocean Microplastics Explained

As we wrap up sampling in the waters off of Maine, Dr. Chris Dupont discusses how collections of plastic particles in the water – or “plastisphere” – may be harboring fish or human pathogens. There may also be microbes responsible for degrading plastic, which are being investigated....

JCVI Team Awarded Two Grants Under the NSF’s “Understanding the Rules of Life” Initiative

The first award, led by John Glass, PhD, for $1M, is focused on “Building and Modeling Synthetic Bacterial Cells.” The second award, led by Zaida Luthey-Schulten, PhD, at the University of Illinois, also for $1M, is titled “Balancing the Demands of a Minimal Cell,” and is focused on...

Dr. Venter at Sailors’ Scuttlebutt Lecture Series

Dr. Craig Venter was a guest speaker at the Whaling Museum in partnership with Nantucket Community Sailing as part of the Sailors’ Scuttlebutt Lecture Series. Dr. Venter's lecture was titled, "Oceans, Human Health and the Genomic Future" discussing the Global Ocean...

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17-Jan-2024
Grow by Ginkgo

Getting Under the Skin

Amid an insulin crisis, one project aims to engineer microscopic insulin pumps out of a skin bacterium.

24-Oct-2023
Noema

Planet Microbe

There are more organisms in the sea, a vital producer of oxygen on Earth, than planets and stars in the universe.

29-Aug-2023
Vanity Fair

The Next Climate Change Calamity?: We’re Ruining the Microbiome, According to Human-Genome-Pioneer Craig Venter

In a new book (coauthored with Venter), a Vanity Fair contributor presents the oceanic evidence that human activity is altering the fabric of life on a microscopic scale.

21-Aug-2023
GEN

Lessons from the Minimal Cell

“Despite reducing the sequence space of possible trajectories, we conclude that streamlining does not constrain fitness evolution and diversification of populations over time. Genome minimization may even create opportunities for evolutionary exploitation of essential genes, which are commonly observed to evolve more slowly.”

09-Aug-2023
Quanta Magazine

Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve

By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve.

15-May-2023
Science

Privacy concerns sparked by human DNA accidentally collected in studies of other species

Two research teams warn that human genomic “bycatch” can reveal private information

10-May-2023
New York Times

Scientists Unveil a More Diverse Human Genome

The “pangenome,” which collated genetic sequences from 47 people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, could greatly expand the reach of personalized medicine.

10-May-2023
Nature

First human ‘pangenome’ aims to catalogue genetic diversity

Researchers release draft results from an ongoing effort to capture the entirety of human genetic variation.

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