J. Craig Venter

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. He was listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. He also served in the Navy, working in the intensive-care ward of a field hospital. Being confronted with severely injured and dying marines on a daily basis instilled in him a desire to study medicine, although he later switched to biomedical research.