Nanoscale Construction with DNA

I'll discuss how to use DNA to construct nanoscale structures. We have invented a general framework to program DNA/RNA strands to self-assemble into structures with user-specified geometry or dynamics. By interfacing these nanostructures with other functional molecules, we have introduced digital programmability into diverse application areas, e.g. fabrication of inorganic nanoparticles with arbitrary prescribed shapes, robust DNA probes with near optimal binding specificity, RNA-based translation regulators with unprecedented dynamic range and orthogonality, and a highly multiplexed optical imaging method. In this talk, I will focus on describing two recent advances in DNA nanoconstruction: the programmable self-assembly of three-dimensional nanostructures from 10,000 unique components and the programmable self-folding of a single DNA/RNA polymer into a compact user-defined shape. For more details of our work, see http://molecular.systems.