Celera Corporation facts for kids
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| Subsidiary | |
| Traded as | NASDAQ: CRA |
| Industry | Technology |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Alameda, California, United States |
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Key people
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William G. Green, Chairman, Kathy P Ordonez, President, Craig Venter, Founder |
| Products | Scientific & Technical Instruments |
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Number of employees
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554 |
Celera is a company that studies genes and related technologies. It is part of Quest Diagnostics. Celera started in 1998 as a part of another company called Applera. It became its own company in 2008. Later, in 2011, Quest Diagnostics bought Celera.
Contents
What is Celera?
Celera was created to find and use information about genomes. A genome is all the DNA in an organism. It contains all the instructions for building and operating a living thing.
How Celera Started
Celera was founded in May 1998. It was started by PE Corporation, which later became Applera. Dr. J. Craig Venter was the first president of Celera. Before Celera, Dr. Venter and Hamilton O. Smith had already done something amazing. They were the first to successfully map out the entire genome of a living thing. This was a tiny bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae.
Mapping the Human Genome
Celera became famous for its work on the human genome. The human genome is the complete set of genetic instructions for a human being. There was a big public project called the Human Genome Project (HGP) working on this too.
Celera used its own methods to map the human genome. They did it much faster and cheaper than the public project. Celera spent about $300 million. The public project was expected to cost around $3 billion.
Celera used a method called shotgun sequencing. This is like taking many small pictures of a puzzle. Then, you use computers to put all the pieces together. This method helped the public HGP speed up its own work. The public project finished earlier than planned, in 2003 instead of 2005.
Sharing Information
At first, some people worried that Celera would keep its gene data private. They thought this would slow down scientific progress. The public Human Genome Project, however, shared all its data freely.
Later, Celera changed its rules. It allowed scientists to use its gene sequences for non-commercial research. This meant researchers could use the data for studies, but not to make money from it.
Books About Celera
The story of Celera and its competition with the Human Genome Project is in several books. The Genome War by James Shreeve tells the story from Craig Venter's side. Another book, The Common Thread, was written by Nobel laureate Sir John Sulston. He was part of the public effort.
Genomes Celera Sequenced
Celera helped map the genomes of several important organisms. This work helps scientists understand how living things work.
Here are some of the genomes Celera sequenced:
- Drosophila melanogaster (a type of fruit fly)
- Human (mostly the genome of Craig Venter himself)
- Anopheles gambiae (a type of mosquito)
- Mouse
See also
In Spanish: Celera Genomics para niños
