Question: Can the proteins be "overwritten" to do different jobs this way? For example can algae be programmed to produce oxygen at a faster rate?

Jonny Brooks-Bartlett answered on 21 Jun 2015:

Very good question. Unfortunately we can’t change proteins to do a different job but algae is not a protein and it’s likely that we can make algae do stuff for us.

Sometimes scientists change the DNA of bacteria, so that the bacteria produce certain things that the scientists want. In my workplace, some of my friends make bacteria produce lots of the protein that they want.