American geneticist Craig Venter died at the age of 80.

American geneticist Craig Venter, one of the founders of modern genomics, died at the age of 80 in San Diego. This was reported on April 30 by The New York Times (NYT).

It is noted that the scientist died on April 29 after being hospitalized due to complications from cancer.

Craig Venter was born on October 14, 1946 in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1984, he joined the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the course of his work, the scientist identified all the mRNAs in the cell and began using them to study the genes of the human brain.

Venter played a key role in the development of genomics and synthetic biology. His research contributed to the transition of biological science to a large-scale analysis of genetic data and accelerated the decoding of the human genome. In 1998, Venter founded Celera Genomics, which was engaged in the commercial version of the Human Genome project.

At the same time, Venter participated in early projects on the study of the human genome, and also led the work on creating a high-precision sequence of the diploid genome. Later, his research groups created for the first time a synthetic bacterial cell functioning on the basis of an artificially assembled genome.

In addition, Venter has been a member of the US National Academy of Sciences since 2002 and the American Philosophical Society. He was awarded the Gairdner International Prize and the US National Science Medal.