Several bio-engineers are working on very radical concepts of biological systems; concepts that involve the fundamental principles of genetics and cellular mechanisms.

One example is the effort to add two new base-pairs or “letters” to the natural four-letter genetic alphabet by Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scrips Research Institute. Romesberg expects the new base pairs will be used to synthesize DNA with novel and unnatural properties.

Another method develop biological systems with unnatural properties was developed more recently by a research group from Cambridge University, in the UK. It concerns a novel system that can incorporate unnatural amino acids in biosynthesis of peptides and proteins far more efficiently than present technologies. Such entirely novel, orthogonal life-forms are also interesting because of their incompatibility with existing life-forms, which would make them relatively safe to use.

More about radical biology

Engineered cells produce entirely new proteins (PDF file)

Robert Adler, Artificial letters added to life’s alphabet, New Scientist, 30 January 2010

Allison A. Henry et.al., Efforts To Expand the Genetic Alphabet: Identification of a Replicable Unnatural DNA Self-Pair, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2004, 126 (22), pp 6923–931 DOI: 10.1021/ja049961u