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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

How scientists are hacking the genetic code to give proteins new powers

By modifying the blueprint of life, researchers are endowing proteins with chemistries they’ve never had before.
  1. Diana Kwon

    1. Diana Kwon is a freelance science journalist based in Berlin.

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For most of the history of life on Earth, genetic information has been carried in a code that specifies just 20 amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which do most of the heavy lifting in the cell; their side-chains govern protein folding, interactions and chemical activities. By limiting the available side chains, nature effectively restricts the kinds of reaction that proteins can perform.

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Nature 618, 874-876 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01980-4

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