Genetic Alphabet Expanded to Create New Proteins

Scientists at Scripps Research have engineered a new method for incorporating non-canonical amino acids into proteins, leading to the development of proteins with tailor-made functions. Normally, three RNA nucleotides (a codon) encode each amino acid, but the team used four for each new amino acid due to examples of this occurring naturally in a few situations. They believe the technique could re-engineer existing proteins or create entirely new ones.