John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946, Salt Lake City) is an American biologist and businessman. He received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1972, and his Ph.D in physiology and pharmacology in 1975. He was the former president, founder, and chief scientific officer at Celera Genomics, which became famous for running a Human Genome Project on its own for commercial purposes, using shotgun sequencing technology in 1999. Venter founded The Institute for Genomic Research in 1992. Venter is currently the president of the Center for the Advancement of Genomics.