Craig Venter Quotes
Most people don't realize it, because they're invisible, but microbes make up about a half of the Earth's biomass, whereas all animals only make up about one one-thousandth of all the biomass.
Venter, J. Craig. "Craig Venter: On the Verge of Creating Synthetic Life." TED, Feb. 2008.
This is an amazing quotation and shows that the Ancient Romans who had a very sophisticated medical technology had a notion of germs and microbes. Ancient Rome was the first organized nation for which health, medicine, public health, and medical research were governmental functions unlike Greece and other civilizations where health was a personal function. Roman policy emphasized prevention unlike the Greeks. Sanitation and water supply and quality were government responsibilities and the Roman standard was not reached in the rest of the world until the 18th century. Heath and medicine was also a major military responsibility. The Roman Empire depended on its army, and trained professional soldiers. Disease was a greater risk to the soldiers than were battlefield casualties, and the Romans had a strong vested interest in keeping these highly trained men alive and healthy—not just the wealthy Roman citizens. The Romans were open to techniques that were developed throughout the Empire and beyond and tended to adopt all good ideas and a few bad ones as well While they had advanced surgery, the public health was the strongest aspect of Roman medicine and health and this notion of germs and disease. Remember that the writer was not a medical or scientific man, but was just indicating what was general wisdom of the Roman elite.
John Craig Venter is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading the first draft sequence of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. Venter founded Celera Genomics, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), where he currently serves as CEO. He was the co-founder of Human Longevity Inc. and Synthetic Genomics. He was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In 2010, the British magazine New Statesman listed Craig Venter at 14th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010". In 2012, Venter was honored with Dan David Prize for his contribution to genome research. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2013. He is a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board.
