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posted by martyb on Friday December 08 2017, @11:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the know-when-to-hold-'em;-know-when-to-fold-'em dept.

Scientists shape DNA into doughnuts, teddy bears, and an image of the Mona Lisa

Scientists have made a big advance in building shapes out of the so-called building blocks of life. New techniques can shape DNA—the double-stranded helical molecule that encodes genes—into objects up to 20 times bigger than previously achieved, three separate groups report today. Together, the new approaches can make objects of virtually any shape: 3D doughnuts and dodecahedrons, cubes with teddy bear–shaped cutouts, and even a tiled image of the Mona Lisa. The techniques could someday lead to a bevy of novel devices for electronics, photonics, nanoscale machines, and possibly disease detection.

Scientists have been making shapes out of DNA since the 1980s, and those efforts took off in 2006 with the invention of a folding technique called DNA origami. It starts with a long DNA strand—called a scaffold—that has a precise sequence of the four molecular units, or nucleotides, dubbed A, C, G, and T, with which DNA spells out its genetic code. Researchers match patches of the scaffold to complementary strands of DNA called staples, which latch on to their targets in two separate places. Connecting those patches forces the scaffold to fold into a prescribed shape. A second version of the technology, introduced in 2012, uses only small strands of DNA—but no scaffolds—that assemble into Lego-like bricks that can then be linked together.

Gigadalton-scale shape-programmable DNA assemblies (DOI: 10.1038/nature24651) (DX)

Programmable self-assembly of three-dimensional nanostructures from 10,000 unique components (DOI: 10.1038/nature24648) (DX)

Fractal assembly of micrometre-scale DNA origami arrays with arbitrary patterns (DOI: 10.1038/nature24655) (DX)

Biotechnological mass production of DNA origami (DOI: 10.1038/nature24650) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 08 2017, @11:58PM (5 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday December 08 2017, @11:58PM (#607515)

    I'll ask the obvious question : WHY???

    > The techniques could someday lead to a bevy of novel devices for electronics, photonics, nanoscale machines, and possibly disease detection.

    Right, very narrow list showing obvious applications. You totally had to achieve the Mona Lisa for that. I believe you were not playing at all. You should have thrown "kill terrorists" and "protect the children" in there too.
    Just because you could...

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @12:02AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 09 2017, @12:02AM (#607518) Journal

      You should have thrown "kill terrorists" and "protect the children" in there too.

      \\

      That's covered by "disease detection".

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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 09 2017, @12:20AM

      by frojack (1554) on Saturday December 09 2017, @12:20AM (#607523) Journal

      Back to work boys! Take those empty pizza boxes with you.

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    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:10AM (1 child)

      by unauthorized (3776) on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:10AM (#607565)

      Playing is a naturally evolved mechanism for learning, and it is far more effective than the ass-backwards protestant-esque method of soul-crushing work. Boredom destroys creativity, if you aren't having fun while creating something then you are shutting down the most important pathways in your brain when it comes to developing novel ideas.

      There is a reason why we have the stereotype of inventive and creative types being slightly off the "normal" chart, and that's because our definition of normality is an artificially imposed mental disorder.

      • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:42AM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:42AM (#607580) Journal

        There is a reason why we have the stereotype of inventive and creative types being slightly off the "normal" chart

        Say! What do you call a demon made from folded paper?

        Orikami!

        [cackles, runs away]

    • (Score: 2) by sbgen on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:44PM

      by sbgen (1302) on Saturday December 09 2017, @09:44PM (#607808)

      DNA origami is very useful in biological research. It provides structures that can be used to query various processes going on inside cells such as protein-protein interactions. While there are methods to do that right now and good ones at that, they are mostly tedious, error prone, need expensive equipment etc. Also they do not scale well. New methods are needed and DNA origami provides an avenue/tool for that. That is my limited knowledge but is verifiable in literature.

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  • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:07AM (2 children)

    by Sulla (5173) on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:07AM (#607532) Journal

    Can we use something similar to unfold prions?

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    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:48AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:48AM (#607553)

      Talking about folding proteins [stanford.edu], since you still can't beat ASICs to mine bitcoins, even at $15k...

    • (Score: 1) by Gault.Drakkor on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:59AM

      by Gault.Drakkor (1079) on Saturday December 09 2017, @01:59AM (#607557)

      I would say no.
      My interpretation of the article is that it is building on prior art/technique of special arrangements in DNA that fold in predicable ways. The current researchers then added a grouping of blocks to form larger blocks.

      I suspect an analogy to your question would be: Can new techniques for building large scale Lego structures be used to un-knot a tangled knotted rope?

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