This is such an awesome study! Imagine the implications of expanding the coding power of DNA by a factor of 9! The first thing I thought when you introduced 'alien DNA' was that it would be useless for an animal without the relevent transciption and translation mechanisms to process it to protein, but the fact the team managed to create these too is phenomenal!

When you say

However, these experiments were all performed with exogenous DNA that was not inserted in the bacterial genome.

Is this because they introduced DNA in plasmids, and not into the central genome of the bacteria?

I guess the next steps are moving that "alien DNA" into the bacterias central genome. From there someone will have to figure out how to make all this work in Eukaryotes with their increasingly complex and fickle DNA machinery!

I don't envy the team that tries to solve that puzzle!

Thanks for such an entertaining read!