Innovations in gene editing and synthetic biology are opening new frontiers across healthcare and agriculture. Researchers at Peking University have developed RNA codon expansion technology exploiting programmable pseudouridine RNA modifications to incorporate non-canonical amino acids with unprecedented precision in mammalian cells. Concurrently, novel RNA virus-based delivery systems enable heritable CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing in wheat plants without tissue culture, facilitating transgene-free genetic modifications in crops. Additionally, the UK’s Wellcome Trust has funded a multi-institutional synthetic human genome project aiming to synthesize human chromosomes, marking a bold step with potential therapeutic implications and ethical considerations. These technologies promise to accelerate biological engineering with applications across medicine and agriculture.