WIKIMEDIA, SQUIDONIUSIn 2014, scientists generated a semisynthetic organism that harbored an unnatural base pair, expanding its genetic alphabet from four letters to six. But the organism grew poorly and lost the unnatural base pairs over time and under less-than-optimal conditions. Now, in a study published today (January 23) in PNAS, the researchers have generated a healthier version of the semisynthetic organism that grows robustly and retains the unnatural base pairs indefinitely.
“Pursuit of a grand challenge—here, to create artificial life based on different molecular components—forces scientists across uncharted terrain where they must solve unscripted problems,” Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Alachua, Florida, who did not participate in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist. “This paper is an excellent example of what pursuits of that grand challenge can do for you by way of discovery.”
“What we did a couple of years ago is we threw the switch, and the light bulb flashed on for a second,” said coauthor Floyd Romesberg of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. “It had never flashed on before and that was really exciting, but then it went off. What we’ve done ...
