NYTBR: J. Craig Venter: A Life Decoded
J. Craig Venter: A Life Decoded
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Dizikes-t.html
The Unraveling
By PETER DIZIKES
A LIFE DECODED
My Genome: My Life.
By J. Craig Venter.
Illustrated. 390 pp. Viking. $25.95.
Who is Craig Venter? One answer is that he is the scientist who
instigated the celebrated race between the government and his
former company, Celera, to produce the first complete transcription
of a human genome. By 2000, when the two parties declared their
contest a tie, Venter was a media darling, a brash, entrepreneurial
scientist with a taste for sailing and adventure: the Larry Ellison
of the lab, the Richard Branson of biology.
Venter likes this image enough to begin his memoir, A Life Decoded,
by describing how he and his childhood friends would race their
bikes down the runways of San Franciscos airport, briefly outpacing
departing planes while angering pilots and passengers. A little
decoding reveals the metaphor: Venter has always been the daring
underdog, taking the race to more powerful forces.
That settled, this autobiography is less about self-discovery than
about public justification. Venter aims to validate his role in the
genome contest, defend his motives, settle scores and recount a
career that produced several other scientific firsts. The result is
engrossing and exasperating and it does indeed suggest a rethinking
of the genome race, though perhaps not the one Venter prefers.