DNA Origami

FleaPlus writes "Caltech scientist Paul Rothemund has developed a new technique for designing and generating self-assembling 2D nanostructures out of DNA. To demonstrate the technique, which is reportedly simple enough that a high-schooler can design with it, Rothemund created patterns like smiley faces, text, and a map of the Americas. The technique might be useful for generating 'nanobreadboard' scaffolds for things like molecular-scale circuitry, protein-based factories, and quantum computers. Rothemund is currently working to extend the technique to 3D nanostructures."

Stuff I didn't get from TA

[cagle_.25]

And I'm not a biologist, so don't kill me.

1. How does the template interact with the DNA to cause self-assembly in the desired pattern?
2. If I throw RNA in with the object, can the structure reproduce?
3. Since these are all based on a single gene, they all code for the same protein, right?
4. How could these structures be used for molecular computing? (the article hints at it; I want details).

Responses starting with IAABiochemist are encouraged...

IANABiologist, but this sounds very important.

[FlyByPC]

Aren't programs like Folding@Home spending thousands of hours of computer time trying to come up with the proper shape to get drugs to behave in a desired way? Even if there's more to it (which there probably is; biology is far from my strongest subject), the potential for nanomanufacturing sounds very very interesting.

I'm thinking that, if this can be applied to materials of varying conductivity -- or if these materials can be made to replace certain types of DNA -- you could make super-efficient capacitors, photovoltaic cells, etc.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this ended up being as important a development as the integrated circuit.

3D Design Tip

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a scientist, but a geek interested in computer graphics and 3D modeling and just thought of share this tip with you guys hoping it may be useful.

When you design 3D graphics, you need a software tool to design your artwork in 3D and render it to get the final output. The Blender [blender3d.org] is one of the best open source 3D modeling and rendering tool. See the 'Art Gallery' section in the Blender home page to understand what you can do with it.

Another very useful 2D vector graphic design tool is Inkscape [inkscape.org], this is similar to Adobe Illustrator, and again its open source.

The Gimp [gimp.org] is similar to Adobe Photoshop and again this too open source.

Latest versions of these software are included into Tomahawk Desktop [tomahawkcomputers.com], this is a very useful multimedia Linux OS.

is it just me, or...

[Khyber]

isn't origami 3-d, not 2-d as the stuff in the submission says? I'm not trying to troll, but I don't see any 2-d origami anywhere on the net. If someone can point me out to 2-D origami, please do, I want to learn!

Re:IANABiologist, but this sounds very important.

[aXis100]

I think protein "folding" is another order of magnitude more complex than this. It has to do with creating the right molecular sockets and receptors just a few atoms wide to bind to the target (vusrus, bacterium etc).

This article is about folding entire strands, sather than a particular site on that strand.