Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

DNA nanotechnology has emerged over the past decades as a powerful strategy to build self-assembling nanostructures, with applications as tools for single molecule biophysics, platforms for diagnostics and therapeutics, and templates for nanofabrication. For example, we recently demonstrated DNA origami barrels as versatile nanoscale pegboards1 with up to 2000 uniquely addressable pixels, spaced 9 nm, as a 3D template for proteins, polymer nanowires2, metallic nanoparticles, and lipid tubes. In parallel, the field of DNA computing has implemented complex logical operations in molecular reaction networks, such as synthetic molecular motors 3. Current key limitations are the size and complexity of DNA nanostructures, and the integration of structural DNA nanotechnology with DNA computing circuits to build reconfigurable and responsive nanostructures. Here I will describe some recent strategies towards hierarchical assembly of DNA origami building blocks into arbitrary 3D shapes. I will discuss how reconfiguration by DNA circuits can be used to guide nanostructure assembly pathways to increase yield and structural diversity. Reconfiguration can also achieve functional diversity, for example we are developing programmable lipid-interacting nanostructures for cell-cell communication in synthetic droplet networks. Finally, future directions in templating DNA origami nanostructures on surfaces for integration into larger devices will be discussed.