A genome-writing consortium announced today that it intends to revise the genome of human cells in the lab so they resist viruses. What’s recoding? A person’s genome uses three-letter “codons” (think AGT, or CAT) to direct the assembly of proteins. But there are extra codons that aren’t needed. The plan is simple: get rid of them. That’s going to take some heavy-duty gene editing—more than 400,000 changes to about 20,000 human genes. Bad for viruses: Viruses use the missing codons to propagate in cells, so a recoded cell would be essentially virus-proof. They could be good for the biotech industry, which uses human cells to manufacture drugs. Are virus-proof people coming? It’s a possibility, according to George Church of Harvard Medical School. He’s leading the project, called GP-Write, and once wrote that recoded humans would be the “climax” of synthetic biology. | 
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