{"podcast":{"title":"Ion Genomics Podcast","slug":"ion-genomics-podcast-7831901","podcast_index_feed_id":7831901,"rss_url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting/bjJ8IM8g.rss","website_url":"www.iongenomics.bio","image_url":"https://hosting-media.riverside.com/media/podcasts/33a5b670-e982-44e8-9d9e-9861ff1bad6b/logos/36dbc099-5e7f-409e-9b79-08546d4716e4.png","author":"Andrew P. Han","episode_count":7,"summary":"Ion Genomics brings you in-depth but also wide-ranging conversations with leading figures in genomic science and technology. Hosted by veteran science journalist Andrew P. Han, the Ion Genomics Podcast is a weekly window into the latest advances driving exploration of human biology. For more science and business news, check out www.iongenomics.bio and subscribe to the newsletter.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-26T18:20:24.653237+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ion-genomics-podcast-7831901"},"episode":{"title":"Remembering Craig Venter With Jamie Shreeve, Author of 'The Genome War'","slug":"remembering-craig-venter-with-jamie-shreeve-author-of-the-genome-war","published_at":"2026-05-08T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ion-genomics-podcast-7831901/remembering-craig-venter-with-jamie-shreeve-author-of-the-genome-war","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ion-genomics-podcast-7831901","url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/95cf0ad6b75fad58a8b73d8c9b02f9848cc17879d8047589dc0e5b4748d3faa9/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiI3MzFkZWQ4Yi1lYzJkLTQwZGEtODdhYy1jOTM5YTQ0YmQ1OTQiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiIzM2E1YjY3MC1lOTgyLTQ0ZTgtOWQ5ZS05ODYxZmYxYmFkNmIiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OWIzMTk0ZDExZTc3MTlhNjFmZmRmNTYiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNjlmZDY5MDAyMTg2MTEzM2Q4YzdkNDQzL2FuZHJldy1oYW5zLXN0dWRpby1HZ25NUy1jb21wb3Nlci0yMDI2LTUtOF9fNi0zOS0yOC5tcDMifQ==.mp3","audio_url":"https://api.riverside.com/hosting-analytics/media/95cf0ad6b75fad58a8b73d8c9b02f9848cc17879d8047589dc0e5b4748d3faa9/eyJlcGlzb2RlSWQiOiI3MzFkZWQ4Yi1lYzJkLTQwZGEtODdhYy1jOTM5YTQ0YmQ1OTQiLCJwb2RjYXN0SWQiOiIzM2E1YjY3MC1lOTgyLTQ0ZTgtOWQ5ZS05ODYxZmYxYmFkNmIiLCJhY2NvdW50SWQiOiI2OWIzMTk0ZDExZTc3MTlhNjFmZmRmNTYiLCJwYXRoIjoibWVkaWEvY2xpcHMvNjlmZDY5MDAyMTg2MTEzM2Q4YzdkNDQzL2FuZHJldy1oYW5zLXN0dWRpby1HZ25NUy1jb21wb3Nlci0yMDI2LTUtOF9fNi0zOS0yOC5tcDMifQ==.mp3","summary":"Craig Venter, the renegade scientist who tried to beat the publicly-funded Human Genome Project with a private company — and nearly succeeded — died last week at 79. My guest this week, Jamie Shreeve, shadowed Venter for two years as part of his research for The Genome War , a book about the saga that captured not only the best and the worst aspects of Venter, but of human nature itself. Shreeve and I evaluated Venter’s legacy while also reminiscing about the man who will be remembered both as a good friend and as an “asshole” in equal measure. We also remembered Venter’s longtime colleague and Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, who died in October. Shreeve is also revealing, for the first time, a James Watson take on Venter so brutal that Shreeve left it out of the book. I never met Venter, so my conception of him has always been and will forever be based on Shreeve’s portrait of him. The Genome War is one of my all-time favorite books and provides an even fuller picture. Please consider buying a copy through your local bookstore: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-genome-war-how-craig-venter-tried-to-capture-the-code-of-life-and-save-the-world-james-shreeve/e018f9700a01fcd0?ean=9780345433749&next=t Shreeve is also the author of The Neandertal Enigma and co-author of Lucy’s Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor . A note: In the interview I say that sequencing-by-synthesis, the dominant method for analyzing whole human genomes today, is similar to the shotgun sequencing method used by Venter at Celera. As I was informed by Adam Phillippy, a leading computational biologist, this is not correct. “Performing de novo genome assembly, as was required for the first genome project, is nearly impossible from short (~100 bp) reads,” he said in an email. “During the entire shor…","meta_description":"Craig Venter, the renegade scientist who tried to beat the publicly-funded Human Genome Project with a private company — and nearly succeeded — died last…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3903,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ion-genomics-podcast-7831901/episodes/remembering-craig-venter-with-jamie-shreeve-author-of-the-genome-war/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ion-genomics-podcast-7831901/remembering-craig-venter-with-jamie-shreeve-author-of-the-genome-war.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}