[theapportioner]

I'd be shocked if he were going into microbio.

Venter loves to promote himself, but what his group is trying to do isn't really that remarkable. People have been adding and deleting genes for many years now, and he wants to delete a few more from a preexisting organism. Hardly "creating life from scratch". More likely than not, they'll have to go through many iterations to create something that can actually survive decently.