Scientists cracked the genetic code in the 1960s.
Five decades later, the genetic code still enchants scientists. They continue to debate how it evolved, and why there aren’t lots of different codes. And as they come to better understand the history of the genetic code, scientists are creating its future. They are re-coding cells to build new kinds of proteins never seen in nature, which could be the basis for new kinds of medicine.
This research goes beyond the advances in biotechnology we see routinely in the news. It changes the biological meaning of DNA. By re-coding life, scientists may eventually engineer new kinds of organisms fundamentally different from anything that’s existed on Earth over the past 4 billion years—a kind of alien life created in the lab.
Read the full, original article here: Creating Life As We Don’t Know It
Additional resources:
- “Human genome use in medicine — no longer hypothetical,” Post Bulletin
- “Turning biologists into programmers,” Penn State
