J. Craig Venter Cancels Algae Summit Keynote for White House Ceremony

You always hate to see a keynote speaker pull out of a major conference attracting wide attention, especially when the conference is focused on a hot emerging field like algae-based technologies and the speaker is J. Craig Venter, the renowned human genome pioneer and founding CEO of San Diego’s Synthetic Genomics.

The brash Venter, who rarely appears in public these days, has gained even higher visibility since mid-July, when he announced Synthetic Genomics has a new partnership with ExxonMobile, which plans to invest $600 million to develop algae-derived biofuels.

At least he has a good excuse.

Instead of speaking to the masses attending the 3rd Annual Algae Biomass Summit in downtown San Diego, Venter will be attending a White House ceremony, where he is receiving a National Medal of Science from President Obama. A recent statement issued by the J. Craig Venter Institute says the medal is intended to recognize Venter’s dedication to “the advancement of the science of genomics, his contributions to the understanding of its implications for society, and his commitment to the clear communication of information to the scientific community, the public, and policymakers.” The medal is the highest scientific honor bestowed by the U.S. government.

Venter’s replacement as keynote speaker Wednesday is Paul Roessler, Synthetic Genomics’ vice president for renewable fuels and chemicals.

Conference organizers also announced last week that Jacque Beaudry-Losique, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, will be the luncheon keynote speaker on Thursday. The three-day conference at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina ends Friday.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.