Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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J. Craig Venter, the scientist who raced to decode the human genome, has died at age 79.

Venter rose to fame in the field for publishing the first bacterial genome ever decoded, along with a list of gene annotations, in 1995. The achievement kicked off an age of discovery in genetics, with researchers racing to decode the genomes of other pathogens—and eventually animals.

He sat down with SciAm weeks before his passing and spoke widely about genomics, AI hype, what the Trump administration has gotten right about science, and his view of a path to immortality.

0:00 Intro
00:12 State of American science
00:28 AI hype and why it's worthless for genomes
01:23 Quantifying each cell in the body
05:04 How American science needs to change (and what Trump got right)
07:27 We don't fund new science
10:01 Advice for young scientists
14:22 Venter was optimistic until the end
17:53 How genomics has changed
19:01 Venter's view of the coming genetic revolution