> But Romesberg says there's no need for concern just yet, because for one, the synthetic base pair is useless. It can't be read and processed into something of value by the bacteria - it's just a proof-of-concept that we can get a life form to take on 'alien' bases and keep them.

While it might not be useful to the organism, could the synthetic base pairs lead to a way to store data? Imagine a bacteria that can be used as a living, self-healing datastore.