(NYT) – A risk-taking outsider, he brought speed, competition and controversy to one of science’s biggest races.

J. Craig Venter, a scientist and entrepreneur who raced to decode the human genome, died on Wednesday in San Diego. He was 79.

His death was announced by the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit research organization founded by Dr. Venter and based in San Diego and Rockville, Md. The institute said in a statement that Dr. Venter had been hospitalized recently for side effects from cancer treatment. (Read More)