"Genetic Hacking: Empowering Proteins with New Abilities"

Scientists are hacking the genetic code to expand the number of amino acids that can be used to create proteins, which could lead to the development of new materials and therapeutics. By modifying the cellular machinery responsible for protein synthesis, researchers have been able to incorporate non-canonical amino acids into proteins, creating molecules with new properties. They have also used this approach to create polymers and to genetically isolate cells. While much of this work has been done in vitro, researchers are working to apply these techniques to living cells and to create entirely new polymers with the same level of sequence definition as proteins.