On May 27, 1961, Heinrich Matthaei, a postdoc working with NIH scientist Marshal Nirenberg, placed synthetic polyuracil RNA into 20 test tubes to see what it would produce. Each tube contained ...

Synthetic bacteria with expanded genetic codes can evolve proteins in the laboratory with enhanced properties using mechanisms that might not be possible with nature's 20 amino acid building blocks.

Hidden within the genetic code lies the "triplet code," a series of three nucleotides that determine a single amino acid. How did scientists discover and unlock this amino acid code? Once the budding ...

mTORC1 carries out its role by regulating certain anabolic (synthetic) and catabolic (degradative) processes. These involve protein synthesis; production of the protein-synthesis machinery in the form ...

A team of investigators at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and its Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology in La Jolla, California is introducing revolutionary changes into the genetic code of ...

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) report in an upcoming article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society their synthesis of a form of the bacterium Escherichia coli with a ...

Our genetic code is made up of four nucleotide bases, but in recent years, scientists have created microbes that incorporate totally new bases. That has opened up new avenues in synthetic biology and ...

Humans possess six forms of the protein actin, which perform essential functions in the body. Two in particular, β-actin and γ-actin, are nearly identical, only differing by four amino acids. Yet ...

Each protein or peptide consists of a linear sequence of amino acids. The protein primary structure conventionally begins at the amino-terminal (N) end and continues until the carboxyl-terminal (C) ...

Leucine and isoleucine are among the 20 amino acids found naturally in the human body. They are very similar in structure but have small differences which change their physiological properties. Both ...

LA JOLLA, CA - In recent years, scientists have engineered bacteria with expanded genetic codes that produce proteins made from a wider range of molecular building blocks, opening up a promising front ...