A New Aspect to the Genetic Code

This week I have decided to discuss some news that I found interesting while looking at possible grad schools. I had googled UT Southwestern and a news article regarding a unknown genetic code showed up. In almost all of my biology classes we have discussed cells in some manner. Its no news to anyone that cells are are made up of proteins, and that proteins are made up of amino acids. We also know that there is a genetic code that is used to build the proteins. The genetic code as we know it assigns the 20 different amino acids with 3 codons. Amino acids can have several different codon sequences. But does the speed at which these amino acids are assembled affect the overall function of the protein? Researchers from UT Southwestern claim that it does. They stated in this news article that "the speed with which a protein is assembled from amino acid building blocks can affect protein folding, which is the process that allows a protein to form the right shape to perform a specific function". This means that if the protein folds differently the function of the protein will be different. This discovery also has important implications for identifying mutations that cause diseases. this is because the findings of their research "indicate that a mutation does not have to change amino acid identity to cause a disease". If these findings hold true and a paper from this research is published, could we see a change in the genetic code that we have been taught all  our lives.

Here is the link to the news article.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150924/UT-Southwestern-researchers-find-a-previously-unknown-genetic-code.aspx