Presents the Friday Keck Center Teleconference*
DNA origami: folding DNA to create arbitrary shapes and patterns
Paul W.K. Rothemund, Ph.D.,
Senior Research Fellow
California Institute of Technology
4:00 pm Friday
Oct. 5th , 2007
(Refreshments at 3:45)
5.521 Levin Hall
Abstract: A key goal for bottom-up nanofabrication methods such as self-assembly has been to generate structures whose complexity matches that achieved by top-down methods such as photolithography. I describe a method for folding long single strands of DNA into arbitrary two dimensional target shapes. Self-assembled in a one-pot reaction from the 7 kilobase genome of phage M13mp18 and more than 200 short synthetic DNAs, the shapes are roughly 100 nanometers in diameter and nearly 5 megadaltons in mass. Experimental shapes approximate target shapes, such as a 5-pointed star, with a resolution of 6 nanometers and may be decorated by patterns at the same 6 nanometer resolution to form words or images. These "DNA origami" structures may be thought of as a versatile "nanobreadboard", a simple platform for creating arbitrary nanostructures such as nanocircuits. Recent work towards the integration of DNA origami with other fabrication methods will be discussed. ( http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~pwkr/ )
