May 22, 2013
- A new, streamlined approach to genetic engineering drastically reduces the time and effort needed to insert new genes into bacteria, the workhorses of biotechnology. The method paves the way for more rapid development of designer microbes for drug...
May 21, 2013
April 9, 2013
- Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have used folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene. This could be an important step toward large-scale production of electronic chips made of graphene, a one-atom-thick...
March 29, 2013
- University of Arizona researcher Hao Yan has made new 2-D and 3-D objects that look like wire-frame art of spheres as well as molecular tweezers, scissors, a screw, hand fan, and even a spider web.
The twist in their 'bottom up,' molecular Lego design strategy focuses on a DNA structure called a Holliday junction.
In nature, this cross-shaped, double-stacked DNA structure is like the 4-way...
March 27, 2013
I increasingly cringe every time I see a new article talking about someone'...
March 4, 2013
- Harvard researchers have used single strand DNA, to self assemble custom designed nano scale structures. Each of the bricks shown to the left is, 25-nanometers on a side, they are composed of ~1,000 voxels (I think it is 500 DNA strand, 2 voxels per strand) unique single strands of DNA, each with 32 nucleotides. Each strand is like a jigsaw puzzle piece and can only bind in one location. This is...
February 25, 2013
- Nabsys, a DNA technology startup, showed off today its solid-state gene sequencing machine at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conference in Marco Island, Florida. The company says that later this year it will begin selling its machine, which will allow researchers to determine the structural organization of long stretches of DNA. This differs from most...
