This Worm Is the First Animal Engineered to Produce Biological Blocks Not Found in Nature
The First Animal to Produce Artificial Amino Acids Jason Chin/Sebastian GreissMeet the 21st amino acid Researchers at Cambridge claim they've engineered the first animal with artificial information embedded in its genetic code in such a way that it generates biological molecules that have never been seen before in nature. That is, it churns out an amino acid that is wholly new, rather than one of the 20 found in natural living things. A quick biology primer, just in case high school biology isn't so fresh. DNA is of course the blueprint for all of our biological stuff. It gives instructions on how the amino acids should arrange themselves into proteins, which pick up the heavy lifting of life from there. There are just 20 amino acids, arranged in different combinations, that are encoded in the genome. The Cambridge team has created nematode worms that generate a 21st, never before seen amino acid....