Celera Corporation
Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Nasdaq: CRA | |
Industry | Technology |
Founded | 1998 |
Headquarters | Alameda, California, United States |
Key people | William G. Green, Chairman, Kathy P Ordonez, President, Craig Venter, Founder |
Products | Scientific & Technical Instruments |
Number of employees | 554[1] |
Website | www.celera.com |
Celera is a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics which focuses on genetic sequencing and related technologies. It was founded in 1998 as a business unit of Applera, spun off into an independent company in 2008, and finally acquired by Quest Diagnostics in 2011.[2]
History
Originally headquartered in
Celera sequenced the human genome at a fraction of the cost of the publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP), using about $300 million of private funding versus approximately $3 billion of taxpayer dollars.[citation needed] However, a significant portion of the human genome had already been sequenced when Celera entered the field, and thus Celera did not incur any costs with obtaining the existing data, which was freely available to the public from GenBank. Celera's approach, which used shotgun sequencing, spurred the public HGP to accelerate its effort and shift its projected timetable from 2005 to 2003.[citation needed]
Critics of initial efforts by Celera Genomics to hold back data from sections of genome they sequenced for commercial exploitation felt that it would retard progress in science as a whole. These critics pointed to the
The rise and fall of Celera as an ambitious competitor of the Human Genome Project is the main subject of the book The Genome War by James Shreeve, who followed Venter around for two years in the process of writing the book. A view from the public effort's side is that of
Genomes sequenced by Celera Genomics
- Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly)
- Human,[3] specifically mostly that of Craig Venter[4]
- Anopheles gambiae (mosquito)
- Mouse[5]
References
- ^ "Company Profile for Celera Group (CRA)". Archived from the original on 2011-11-16. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
- ^ https://www.celera.com/celera/pr_1305673632 Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine Quest Diagnostics Successfully Completes Acquisition of Celera, May 17, 2011.
- PMID 11181995.
- ^ Singer, Emily (2007-09-04). "Craig Venter's Genome". MIT Technology Review.
Five years ago, Craig Venter let out a big secret. As president of Celera Genomics, Venter had led the race between his company and a government-funded project to decode the human genome. After leaving Celera in 2002, Venter announced that much of the genome that had been sequenced there was his own.
- ^ Newspaperarticle from "Handelsblatt", 2000-10-12
External links
- Company website
- Prepared Statement of Craig Venter of Celera Venter discusses Celera's progress in deciphering the human genome sequence and its relationship to healthcare and to the federally funded Human Genome Project.
- U.S. National Institutes of Health website for the Human Genome Research Institute