Washington

Chiefs at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland, and affiliated organizations led by bioentrepeneur Craig Venter have rejected a plan to consolidate their workforces — at least for now.

Venter co-founded TIGR with his wife, Claire Fraser, in 1992. In 2002, he started three other organizations using funding from the J. Craig Venter Science Foundation: the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, the Joint Technology Center and the Center for the Advancement of Genomics. TIGR is partly funded by the foundation, but it also receives money from outside sources such as the National Institutes of Health.

Earlier this year Venter proposed combining the workforces of all of these organizations. “We have five not-for-profit organizations and five boards and we have duplicate human resources, finance and other departments, and it's been draining the money that comes out of the foundation,” Venter says.

Venter is chairman of TIGR's board, whose membership overlaps with those of the foundation and the other institutes. Fraser has directed TIGR for the past six years. But there are concerns that the present set up might lead to tension because Fraser and Venter, who have been married since 1981, are now separated.

Venter says that this did not influence his decision to seek consolidation. “Both myself and the board have been very supportive of her job,” he says of Fraser.

Late last month, TIGR's board decided to keep the institute separate from the other three organizations, which will merge into a single entity. “TIGR really has a different style and mission from the other organizations,” says Gerald Rubin a TIGR board member and vice-president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Apart ... but still working together: Craig Venter (left) and Claire Fraser. Credit: M. THEILER-FILES/REUTERS (LEFT); TIGR

But Venter did not rule our future reorganizations. “Nothing is ever final,” he says.