Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SGCR (Systematic Genetic Code Reprogramming)

Teaser

We are interested in converting the cell into a factory for discovering and making polymers- potentially including new materials and medicines. This is important for society because the ability to discover make materials and medicines using synthetic processes is often...

Summary

We are interested in converting the cell into a factory for discovering and making polymers- potentially including new materials and medicines. This is important for society because the ability to discover make materials and medicines using synthetic processes is often ecologically and economically challenging. The overall objective is to understand how to convert cellular biosynthetic machinery to discover and make new polymers.

Work performed

In the current period we have developed mutually orthogonal aminoacyl tRNA synthetase - tRNA pairs. These pairs are a crucial component of stratgies to re-engineer translation for the cellular biosynthesis of polymers. We have also developed novel methods for large-scale replacement of whole genomes that provide one potential strategy for encoding the biosynthesis of new polymers.

Final results

By the end of the project we expect to have new strategies to recode genomes and new strategies to biosynthesize proteins and polymers containing new building blocks.