| Clipped from: Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA | Popular Science |
Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA
Scientists program DNA to fold in tightly controlled curves and circles—an important step toward building larger nanomachines.
| Clipped from: Nanoscale origami from DNA |
Nanoscale origami from DNA
Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering
Scientists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Harvard University have thrown the lid off a new toolbox for building nanoscale structures out of DNA, with complex twisting and curving shapes. In the August 7 issue of the journal Science, they report a series of experiments in which they folded DNA, origami-like, into three dimensional objects including a beachball-shaped wireframe capsule just 50 nanometers in diameter.
"Our goal was to find out whether we could program DNA to assemble into shapes that exhibit custom curvature or twist, with features just a few nanometers wide," says biophysicist Hendrik Dietz, a professor at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. Dietz's collaborators in these experiments were Professor William Shih and Dr. Shawn Douglas of Harvard University. "It worked," he says, "and we can now build a diversity of three-dimensional nanoscale machine parts, such as round gears or curved tubes or capsules. Assembling those parts into bigger, more complex and functional devices should be possible."
| Clipped from: Origami at the Molecular Level - WSJ.com |
Bioengineers learn to fold DNA into complex shapes, which researchers hope will one day revolutionize manufacturing, medicine and computing. WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz reports on how scientists are manipulating DNA's chemical rules.
The original idea of using DNA as building material appeared in a daydream. In 1980, Dr. Seeman was sipping a Bass Ale in a campus pub at the State University of New York in Albany and musing about molecular structure. For no apparent reason, as he recalls it today, he thought of a picture by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, whose work explores exotic geometry. Then into his mind there popped a way to make Escher's patterns from strands of DNA.
Today, 40 laboratories are exploring the ramifications. Even so, it could easily be decades before anyone can translate such fundamental control over DNA assembly into anything useful.
| Clipped from: caDNAno - Gallery |
Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes
Shawn M. Douglas, Hendrik Dietz, Tim Liedl, Björn Högberg, Franziska Graf, & William M. ShihNature. 459:414–8. 21 May 2009.
| Clipped from: Welcome to the Dietz Research Group: Laboratory for Biomolecular Nanotechnology at Technische Universität München. |
Welcome to the Dietz Research Group at TU Munich!
What we do & How we do it.
We develop novel scientific devices and methods for applications in biomolecular physics, biological chemistry, and molecular medicine. We use DNA to build nanometer-scale devices with atomically precise features. We customize proteins and study hybrid DNA-protein complexes. 3D transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and single molecule methods including optical trapping and fluorescence microscopy are among our routine analysis tools. Read more.
Sources:
- Precision Nanoscale Car Parts Self-Assembled From DNA | Popular Science
- Nanoscale origami from DNA
- Origami at the Molecular Level - WSJ.com
- caDNAno - Gallery
- Related:
- Welcome to the Dietz Research Group: Laboratory for Biomolecular Nanotechnology at Technische Universität München.
- DNA Nanotechnology For More Shapes and Tools
- Self-Assembling DNA Makes Super 3-D Nano Machines | Wired Science | Wired.com
- The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University | Yan Lab
- Centre for DNA Nanotechnology - CDNA
- Nanoscale origami from DNA: Researchers develop a new toolbox for nano-engineering
- Rolling out DNA nanostructures in vivo
- Self-assembly of DNA into nanoscale three-dimensional shapes : Abstract : Nature
