Genomics pioneer, Dr J Craig Venter delivered the 2010 Graeme Clark oration to an audience of 2,000 people on 17 March, 2010. From Reading to Writing the Genetic Code surveyed the past 15 years’ effort to digitise biology and what is being referred to as the dawn of the new phase of biology, using digitized information to write new genetic code to code[?] for new biological systems and processes.

In introducing Dr Venter, the Governor of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser, AC, noted that the ability to read the genetic make up of an individual has profound implications for how medicine is practised and how the lives of people can be improved.

Dr Venter began his talk by describing how he came to be involved in the field of genomics. In 1987 his lab at the National Institutes of Health was researching neurotransmitter receptors and receptor biochemistry of different types and parts of the human physiology, using an automated DNA sequencer. Discussion of the human genome project at the time was seen as a big step in science and was the fascination that saw Dr Venter turn his attention to this project.

Dr Venter’s lab undertook some of the initial sequencing of the human genome to see if this was possible. His team found that while sequencing was possible, the interpretation of that sequence was extremely complicated. This led to the development of Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs), the mechanism by which chromosomes could be interpreted. By 1991, only 337 genes had been sequenced, and this number had grown to almost 65 million by early 2010. The first haploid human genome (23 chromosomes) was sequenced in 2000 and the first diploid genome (46 chromosomes) was sequenced in 2007.

Dr Venter described how ESTs were then used to sequence sea water in the oceans to find new life forms through the J C Venter Institute’s Global Ocean Sampling Expedition. These expeditions have found an abundance of microbial life. When Dr Venter started his efforts to sequence the human genome, there were less than a million genes known to science. The ocean sampling expedition has now grown this figure to 20 million genes, and rising! Importantly, Dr Venter has placed the data from his sampling expeditions on the internet for everybody to use. Sampling in the air and the earth’s crust has also found an abundance of microbial and viral life.

Having described the sequencing, or writing, of the genetic code, Dr Venter then examined the next phase of the journey, constructing an artificial chromosome, or writing the genetic code. The process he described resembled an assembly line, only it is DNA that is being assembled! The automatic process goes straight from a computer to synthesize large pieces of DNA molecules without any human intervention. The process of constructing a living microbe involves the sequencing of a genome, synthesising it and transplanting it into a cellular environment in a living host. That is, computer software is placed into a cell via synthetic DNA, which strats producing new proteins created by this software and thereby creates a new cell. The writing of the genetic code is now complete.

Having a process by which DNA can be written much like computer code, Dr Venter discussed how this technology could be put to use to address one of the world’s most pressing problems, the growing demand for energy and the creation of greater levels of carbon dioxide. With global population forecast to grow to 9 billion by 2050, this is a pressing issue. Dr Venter’s solution is to design microalgae that produce fuels that can replace our reliance on conventional sources. The engineering challenge is to build facilities of a scale that can produce the synthetic replacement biofuels in very large quantities. ExxonMobil is funding Dr Venter and his team to determine if the process can be scaled up from the lab to an industrial plant.

Shortly after he delivered the Oration, Dr Venter announced on 20 May in the journal Science that he and his team had created the first “synthetic cell”, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, more commonly referred to since as Synthia. Dr Venter was at pains to stress that what he and his team had achieved was not the creation of life from scratch, but that they had transformed existing life into new life.

Dr Venter delivered a tour de force that will be talked about for some time. Who knows whether the promise of designed DNA will become a reality, and what challenges await it. But the 2010 Graeme Clark Oration certainly could not but inspire the imagination about the possibilities that the convergence of biology, computing and engineering is capable of delivering.