Expanding the book of life

A new character has been added to the four-letter language of the genes. Philip Ball explains how and why.

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McMinn,D.L., Ogawa, A.K., Wu, Y., Liu, J., Schultz, P.G. & Romesberg, F.E. Efforts toward Expansion of the Genetic Alphabet: DNA Polymerase Recognition of a Highly Stable, Self-Pairing Hydrophobic Base J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121, 11585 (1999).
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Philip Ball
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Ball, P. Expanding the book of life. Nature (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/news000106-2