Synthetic amino acid enables safe, new biotechnology solutions to global problems

Scientists from Yale have devised a way to ensure genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be safely confined in the environment, overcoming a major obstacle to widespread use of GMOs in agriculture, energy production, waste management, and medicine.

The Yale researchers rewrote the DNA of a strain of bacteria so that it requires the presence of a special synthetic amino acid that does not exist in nature to activate genes essential for growth. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which carry out life’s functions. This new method of bio-containment, reported online on Jan. 21 in the journal Nature, solves a longstanding problem in biotechnology.

“This is a significant improvement over existing biocontainment approaches for genetically modified organisms,” said Farren Isaacs, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and the Systems Biology Institute at West Campus, and senior author of the paper. “This work establishes important safeguards for organisms in agricultural settings, and more broadly, for their use in environmental bioremediation and even in medical therapies.”

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