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Craig Venter has resigned as president of Celera Genomics, the company he
helped found in a failed attempt to privatise the human genome by sequencing it
before the publicly funded Human Genome Project. He will now be “refocusing his
attention on the purely scientific aspects” of the business as chair of the
company’s scientific advisory board, says the firm. The move may reflect the
desire of the parent company, Applera, to concentrate more on discovering and
developing drugs, rather than simply marketing access to genome and proteome
information. Applera head Tony White will run Celera on a temporary basis.