The Scripps Institution of Oceanography will award its seventh annual Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest to biologist J. Craig Venter for his contribution to human genome studies. Venter will conduct a free lecture following the award ceremony on Wednesday, June 20, at La Jolla Playhouse.
Venter, a former physiologist featured in Time magazine in 2007 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, led research to sequence the human genome in the year 2001. He spent the last two years on a yacht, the Sorcerer II, circumnavigating the globe to collect water samples and study ocean microbes, according to Ruth Varonfakis, SIO communications director.
“He calls [the ocean] ‘a liquid, living soup,'” Varonfakis elaborated. “From that, he was able to come up with six million genes that are just found in water [organisms].”
The Nierenberg Prize is an annual award named for William A. Nierenberg (1919-2000), an expert in underwater warfare research who served as the director of SIO from 1965 to 1986. The award includes a bronze medal and a $25,000 monetary prize. A committee led by the director of SIO awards the Nierenberg Prize each year to someone who conducts research of interest to the general public, according to Nigella Hillgarth, director of the Birch Aquarium, who sat on the committee.
The ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. in the Forum Theater at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive. For more information contact Birch Aquarium visitor services, (858) 534-4109.