Unnatural amino acids compatible with ribosomes
(circled: azide, alkyne, and biotin derivative)
From Neumann et al., 2010 and Dougherty, 2000.
All ribosomes read genetic data as three-letter words that encode 20 standard amino acids (give or take a few anomalies). This is equally true of the ribosomes in deep-sea bacteria living at [...]Students often ask me for advice on how to study for a career in nanotechnology, and as you might imagine, providing a good answer is challenging. “Nanotechnology” refers to a notoriously broad range of areas of science and technology, and progress during a student’s career will open new areas, and some are yet to be [...]
“Cells” (Courtesy, Robert Hooke)
Synthetic biology doesn’t require cells, and in several ways, cells are liabilities.
Cells can make engineering difficult. Cell membranes and bacterial walls stand between new genes and the machinery needed to transcribe and translate them. They are barriers to liberating gene products. They contain systems that are complex products of eons of evolutionary [...]