Craig Venter Audio & Video

J. Craig Venter visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book, "A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life."

Can we create new life out of our digital universe? Craig Venter asks. His answer is "yes" -- and pretty soon. He walks through his latest research and promises that we'll soon be able to build and boot up a synthetic chromosome.

Growing up in California, J. Craig Venter didn't appear to have much of a future. An unremarkable student, he nearly flunked out of high school. After being drafted into the army, he enlisted in the navy and went to Vietnam, where the life-and-death struggles he encountered as a medic piqued his interest in science and medicine.

Genomics pioneer Craig Venter takes a break from his epic round-the-world expedition to talk about the millions of genes his team has discovered so far in its quest to map the ocean's biodiversity.

Part one in a special edition series, "Mapping the Human Genome".