Cohen · Current opinion in biotechnology 2025 · narrative review · n=?

Engineering of the genetic code.

Cited 5 times in the scientific literature.

Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data

Narrative review of molecular engineering methods without primary human clinical data (graded by design analogy).

PubMed 39733656 · doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2024.103245 · record verified 2026-08-30

What was done

This narrative review summarizes recent strategies in genetic code expansion, focusing on nucleotide modification, codon reassignment, genome-wide recoding, synthetic base pair introduction, and the engineering of orthogonal translational machinery to incorporate noncanonical amino acids into proteins.

What was found

The abstract reports no numerical values, effect sizes, or quantitative metrics. It summarizes qualitative advances in expanding protein chemistries (e.g., adding bio-orthogonal handles, fluorophores, and redox-active groups) while addressing challenges related to translational efficiency and off-target effects.

Why it matters

Genetic code expansion enables the site-specific introduction of custom chemical functionalities into proteins, providing foundational tools for synthetic biology, molecular imaging, and protein-based therapeutics.

Limits

The abstract describes a narrative review without primary data or a systematic search methodology. It provides no quantitative comparisons of incorporation efficiency, fidelity, off-target rates, or cell viability across different expression platforms.

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