Famed gene jockey J. Craig Venter, whose company Celera Genomics completed a shotgun sequence of the human genome in 2000, will now use his deep DNA knowledge to build new organisms. Synthetic Genomics, launching today, aims to engineer modular genetic components that can be snapped together to build biological systems that don’t exist in nature. (More about synthetic biology can be found in articles I’ve written here and here. Previous posts on the subject here and here.) The company’s first applications will be in ethanol and hydrogen production. From the press release:

A host cell that has reduced and reoriented metabolic needs can generate biological energy applicable to a broad range of industrial fields including energy, industrial organic compounds, pharmaceuticals, CO2 sequestration, fine chemicals, and environmental remediation. “We are in an era of rapid advances in science and are beginning the transition from being able to not only read genetic code, but are now moving to the early stages of being able to write code,” said Dr. Venter.

Link to press release, Link to Synthetic Genomics (Thanks, Xeni!)