An illustration of E. coli. Scientists have been racing to shrink the genetic code of this bacterium. Kateryna Kon / Science Photo Library via Getty Images The DNA of nearly all life on Earth is made ...

Liquid culture flasks of bacteria grown in yellow broth covered with tinfoil on a shaker. Bacterial strains needed to be tested every step of the way to create the highly compressed genome. Credit: ...

In a giant feat of genetic engineering, scientists have created bacteria that make proteins in a radically different way than all natural species do. By Carl Zimmer At the heart of all life is a code.

To overcome the inherent challenge of translation termination interference caused by stop codon reprogramming in mammalian cells, researchers from Peking University led by Chen Peng from College of ...

What scientists once dismissed as junk DNA may actually be some of the most powerful code in our genome. A new international study reveals that ancient viral DNA buried in our genes plays an active ...

Jason Mast is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the science behind new medicines and the systems and people that decide whether that science ever reaches patients. You can reach Jason ...