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Science 24 October 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5645, pp. 584 - 585
DOI: 10.1126/science.302.5645.584
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Essays on Science and Society

Also see the archival list of the Essays on Science and Society.

AMERSHAM PRIZE WINNER:
Expanding the Genetic Code

Lei Wang

Proteins, the molecules that carry out most of the functions required for life, are built from 20 genetically encoded amino acids In his essay that won the Amersham Biosciences and Science Prize for young scientists, Lei Wang describes how he engineered the bacteria Escherichia coli to make unnatural amino acids. The biosynthesis strategy mimics the way that the common 20 amino acids are encoded. These additional building blocks allow the design of proteins with new properties.

The author is in the Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. E-mail: lewang{at}ucsd.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)