Peter Schultz and his team managed to hack the genetic code by tinkering with the machinery of protein synthesis. By chemically attaching unnatural amino acids to transfer RNAs (tRNAs) that could recognize one of the three stop codons, and identifying and modifying tRNAs and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases that were bio-orthogonal to the host cell, they were able to incorporate non-canonical amino acids into living cells, supplementing the translational apparatus without altering it. Schultz’s team and others have used this approach to genetically encode more than 200 non-standard amino acids into proteins, producing polymers from entirely new building blocks, and developing therapeutics and materials.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01980-4