FILE PHOTO OF CELERA GEMONICS PRESIDENT J CRAIG VENTER, 2000-06-13 (photo)

Celera Genomics President J. Craig Venter sits near a DNA sequencer in  the sequencing lab of the company's facility in Rockville, Maryland, in  this June 13, 2000 file photo. Venter, the pioneer scientist who helped  crack the human genome, and Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith were expected  to announce on November 21, 2002 plans to create a new life form in a  laboratory dish in an experiment that raises ethical and safety  questions, according to a published report. Venter and Smith hope to  create a single-celled, partially man-made organism with the minimum  number of genes necessary to sustain life in a project funded by a $3  million grant from the U.S. Energy Department, The Washington Post  reported in its Thursday editions. If the experiment works, the paper  said, the microscopic man-made cell would begin feeding and dividing to  create a population of cells unlike any previously known to exist.  REUTERS/Tim Shaffer-Files    HB/