A new way to design nano-sized three-dimensional structures made from DNA could enable the rapid fabrication of microelectronics and optical materials.
▲ This image is an artistic rendering of how the 3D hierarchically ordered nanoparticle structures are assembled using DNA-programmable bonds. Image courtesy of Oleg Gang.
The method takes advantage of DNA’s ability to self-organize by bonding in base pairs: the nucleotide adenine links only to thymine, and cytosine only to guanine. This allows for quick self-assembly in no more complex a solvent than water, but it’s difficult to nudge the DNA toward more complex structures, notes Oleg Gang, a professor of chemical engineering and applied physics and materials science at Columbia Univ. “You really have very little way to design what you can get,” Gang says.
Now, Gang and his colleagues have found a way to build a blueprint into the DNA self-assembly. They do this by starting with a basic, repeating DNA shape and then designing an algorithm that can find the minimum number possible of these DNA building blocks to create a given structure. The algorithm then gives an initial DNA starting sequence that will lead to those building blocks...
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