Self-assembling DNA

Physicists from the University of Oxford have designed the first structurally robust, self-assembling DNA building blocks. The DNA tetrahedra, 10,000,000,000 (ten thousand million) of which could fit on the head of a pin, could lead to the manufacture of complex nanostructures.

DNA holds the genetic code in all living organisms, and it is this ability to store information which is the key to DNA’s usefulness as an engineering material. The DNA building blocks, designed by a team from Oxford’s Department of Physics and reported in the 9 December edition of Science, are made from four short strands of synthetic DNA. Each strand has three segments, and the structure of each segment carries a code which allows it to bind to one of the other strands. When the strands are heated in a salt solution to just below boiling point then rapidly cooled they bond together to form a tetrahedron. The researchers were then able to connect the tetrahedra using programmable “linkers” made of single strands of DNA.