Venter, who founded Celera Genomics (nyse: CRA - news - people ), was instrumental in creating Celera's gene sequence.

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Lately, Applied has taken over Celera's original business, selling gene-sequence subscriptions to drug companies, while Celera focuses on developing its own products.

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This methylation pattern played as great a role in determining a mouse's coat colour as did the underlying gene sequence.

ECONOMIST: Genes are not all there is to heredity

Instead, Celera's business plan involves selling access to the technologies it has developed in order to use the gene sequence.

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One roadblock to synthbio's future is the messed-up patent environment in biotech, where every tiny protein pathway and gene sequence has an owner wanting to get paid.

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