Can this man save the planet?

Molecular biologist J. Craig Venter hopes that algae varieties might someday replace oil wells.

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At Venter's six-year-old company, Synthetic Genomics, in La Jolla, Calif., scientists plan to engineer algae cells that are good at using carbon dioxide, sunlight and water, and then pumping out oil.

Michael Kelley /

Venter with his poodle, Darwin, at the Rockville offices of his J. Craig Venter Institute. Last year, JCVI announced it had created synthetic cells. Critics called that an overstatement. In fact, the cells themselves were not synthetic, only their DNA.

Eli Meir Kaplan / For The Washington Post

Microbiologist Karen Nelson joined JCVI just out of graduate school and now directs its Rockville labs. Of Venter, she says: "He really doesn't take 'no' as an option. In his mind, there's no barrier to trying something."

Eli Meir Kaplan / For The Washington Post

In La Jolla, molecular biologist Clyde Hutchison, left, and Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith are taking the smallest, simplest bacterial cells known and stripping out groups of genes. Researchers at Venter's centers are studying disease-causing microbes, bacteria that can break down human waste, and even the possibility that DNA sequences can lead to new flu vaccines.

Michael Kelley / Michael Kelley Photography

Venter on his research sailboat, Sorcerer II, off the coast of San Diego, in 2007. Sailing is one way he combines his passion for sailing with that for science. From the vessel, scientists have collected seawater samples from diverse sites to sequence the DNA of microscopic marine life.

Evan Hurd / Getty Images

Venter talks with Li Ma, a JCVI researcher who has worked on synthetic genomics. Venter told reporter Susan Okie: "We have to come up with new sources of food, new sources of water, new sources of energy. Trying to ignore leading-edge science and technology as a means of getting there is an ostrich approach of burying your head in the sand."

Eli Meir Kaplan / For The Washington Post

Venter agrees that "synthetic cells" and more advanced genomics will require federal and private oversight, even though he maintains that "the hardest thing to do scientifically, even imaginably, would be to create a new pathogen."

Eli Meir Kaplan / For The Washington Post

At Synthetic Genomics' "greenhouse," where algae grow in large tubs, thought is given to minimizing environmental risks. Venter says he plans to engineer suicide genes into his oil-producing algae cells, lest they escape their ponds and generate oil spills.

Michael Kelley / Michael Kelley Photography

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