About Floyd

Dr. Floyd Romesberg is a highly influential biotechnologist and biochemist best known for his pioneering work in synthetic biology and expanding the genetic alphabet. For decades, his research at Scripps Research focused on understanding and evolving protein function, often blending chemistry, biology, and physics. His most remarkable breakthrough was developing a third, artificial base pair (nicknamed X and Y) that expanded the four-letter DNA code to six letters. In a milestone achievement, his lab created the world’s first semi-synthetic organism—a bacterium that could stably replicate and maintain this expanded DNA in successive generations. This innovation opens the door to creating unnatural organisms that can build proteins with unnatural amino acids, leading to a vast array of new functions. Floyd’s work is now being used to develop next-generation protein therapeutics, especially in medicine. He is a co-founder of several biotech companies, most notably Synthorx, Inc., which was founded based on his expanded genetic alphabet technology. Floyd continues to be a leading voice in the field, challenging our assumptions about the limits of nature’s design.