Ana Dopazo

Craig Venter, the American biologist and entrepreneur who founded Celera Genomics to launch his own Human Genome Project in 1999 outside the public consortium, died Wednesday in San Diego at the age of 79, according to a statement from the J. Craig Venter Institute, which he led. Among other achievements, Venter completed the first full sequencing of a living organism’s genetic material and announced that he had succeeded in creating synthetic life.

An international team, co-led by researchers from the CNAG in Barcelona, has developed a new technique that allows millions of individual cells to be analysed at the same time without the need for sequencing, using what is known as spatial genomics. The technique, called STAMP, could make this type of analysis cheaper and more widespread. ‘We are opening the door to revolutionary advances in precision medicine, enabling the development of highly targeted diagnostics and therapies capable of transforming clinical outcomes,’ say the authors, who publish their findings in the journal Cell.