This effort was made possible by the earlier work by Isaacs and Church groups on reclaiming the UAG stop codon by removing all instances of it genome wide [1].

This effort was made possible by the earlier work by Isaacs and Church groups on reclaiming the UAG stop codon by removing all instances of it genome wide [1]. Today the Church group published a followup on progress on removing six more codons [2]. If they can finish this, they should be able to make an organism dependent on not one but 4 different synthetic amino acids. Yes, life might evolve away from needing one, but with proper design all four would make an organism that would be exceedingly unlikely to escape. [1]. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/357 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156/357 [2]. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/819 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/819 EDIT COI: I am a former member of the Church lab.