Could the solution to global warming being hiding on the deep ocean floor, perhaps just miles off Bermuda? If it is, Dr. Craig Venter intends to find it.

The scientist credited with spurring the race to decode the human genome to a dramatically more timely completion is in Bermuda for meetings and a lecture at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research.

Dr. Venter spoke with The Royal Gazette yesterday after sailing to Bermuda on his 95-foot yacht earlier in the week from St. Martin.

It was his fourth sail to the Island - and each trip, he points out, has been on a progressively bigger boat.

Being that rare breed of scientist who makes science "sexy" has its rewards it seems.

Best known for founding Celera Genomics - the private company which challenged a publicly funded consortium of scientists in 1998 that it would complete the sequencing of human genetic code both faster and more economically - Dr. Venter is now looking to the sea for his next scientific crusade: Finding a clean energy source.

We've got a planet to save, and Dr. Venter believes the microbes which created our atmosphere over millions of years just might help us do it of we tap into them the right way.

While turning to planetary survival from a mapping out the mysteries of the human genetic code might seem a leap for some, for Dr. Venter it is a natural evolution of his interests.

"I only worked on the Human Genome for two years," he points out. In fact the human genetic code was one of a string of genomes of different organisms which his company Celera and research tank The Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR) sequenced.

The link to his current project comes from an earlier subject - methanococcus jannaschii - a little microbe his team picked up 2,600 metres below the Pacific Ocean (not too far from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico) by breaking the top off a thermal vent where it was happily flourishing.

TIGR sequenced the bacteria's genome in 1996.

What methanococcus does - besides thriving at two atmospheres of pressure and 85C heat (over twice as hot as the boiling point of water at sea level) - is consume hydrogen and carbon dioxide and expel methane.

Meanwhile, decades of gas-guzzling vehicles and burning fossil fuels for energy on earth have pumped - and continue to pump - increasingly dangerous volumes of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. It doesn't belong there.

The gas traps excess heat from the sun creating the greenhouse effect.

So finding a microbe which captures carbon dioxide might be part of a solution to global warming.

Better yet would be if, in the course of doing so, that microbe also produced a clean alternative fuel source such as hydrogen, Dr. Venter explained yesterday.

A tiny microbe might attack the problems of environmental damage from both prevention and remedy angles.

There is good reason to believe it's possible such a microbe exists as what scientists know about the intricately layered world we live in, is practically nothing.

"Over 99 percent of life on this planet is unknown," Dr. Venter said.

One millilitre droplet of ocean, for example, contains one million bacteria and ten million viruses, he said.

Luckily, he adds, only a tiny fraction of microbial life negatively affects humans.

Finding the microbe that might help humans undo the horrific damage we've wreaked on our planet, however, may be a race even a qualified scientific sprinter such as Dr. Venter cannot win.

But after decoding the human genome in less than two years, rather than the decades originally predicted by the scientific consortium - in 2000 the rival teams came together to simultaneously announce the completion of the mapping in a White House ceremony - there is good reason to hope.

Dr. Venter is the kind of scientist that reminds people science can be a rewarding exploration of the art of the possible.

His current project melds well with some of the research in bio-prospecting which the biostation's own Dr. Hank Trapido-Rosenthal is doing.

Bioprospecting "applies the tools of genomics and genetic engineering to the task of searching for bioactive molecules that have potential uses in the medical and industrial worlds", Dr. Trapido-Rosenthal explained in the BBSR's Annual Report for 2001.

Biostation researchers have been looking both at shallow water organisms such as sponges and coral - and the bacteria that live on them - as well as casting their nets to the deeper ocean which is considered to be the greatest source of novel genetic material on the planet.

Some collaboration between BBSR and Dr. Venter's teams has already been established, The Royal Gazette was told yesterday.

"We're hoping to link together in terms looking for some new marine organisms," Dr. Venter said.

Last night, a standing-room-only crowd attended Dr. Venter's lecture at BBSR, "Genomics: From Microbes to Humans and What Lies Ahead" in which he highlighted some of the findings from the Human Genome Project.

One of key things found in the course of charting our genetic maps has been that there are not very many genetic differences between any two people, he said afterward.

Actually, there really are not as many genetic differences as we might have imagined between humans and the average mouse or fruit fly.

Of the three billion letters that comprise our genetic code, only roughly 1,200 will differ between any two people, Dr. Venter explained.

And genetically, there is no evidence of racial differences, or even "race".

"There is no basis in the genetic code for what is socially defined as race," Dr. Venter said. "Hundreds of thousands of years ago, we all had the same Black African ancestor.

"It's only as people migrated to different parts of the world that the features we see and perceive as differences developed.

"For example skin colour is only a minor variant primarily associated with the amount of sunlight we're exposed to.

"As these Africans migrated North and the amount of sunlight they were exposed to decreased, lighter skin became advantageous primarily in terms of Vitamin D production.

"This was before we had it (Vitamin D) in milk. If we'd had it in milk back then, we'd all have black skin today."

While decoding the human genome has opened fantastic new doors for medical science, it has also raised ethical questions about the privacy of our genetic information.

One of the key fears, Dr. Venter explained, is that our genetic information might be used against us.

Carrying a genetic indicator for cancer, for example, might be used by an employer as a reason not to hire an individual, or by an insurance company as a reason not to provide health coverage.

Dr. Venter is currently lobbying for the introduction of Genetic Non-Discrimination bill to the US Congress in Washington to prevent this from happening.

He also recently admitted publicly that his own genome was one of the five samples Celera used in producing its genetic map. "People have this real concern their own genetic code can be used as a weapon against them," Dr. Venter told The Royal Gazette. "It would be hypocritical to ask someone else to share this information if I'm not willing to take a leadership role."

His part in the Human Genome Project has brought Dr. Venter fame and riches. He has also been branded an "egomaniac" and a "maverick" by critics.

But this year, he turned away from profits, saying he will focus only on not-for-profit research enterprises and stepping down from Celera.

He also created a $100 million research endowment from his stock holdings.

As a scientist with an innate interest in the way our world interconnects, Dr. Venter is willing to ask the big questions and seek their solutions.

And he does it well enough, to make the rest of the world sit up and listen.