The research objective of this project is to develop DNA nanostructures that can self-assemble into larger one dimensional and two dimensional arrays capable of programmable self-replication and programmable origami folding into complex, predictable three dimensional shapes. The resulting nanostructured origami will organize embedded non-DNA components into intricate geometries that enable new material properties and device functionalities. This project brings together a team of leading experts and practitioners from the sciences, mathematics, and sculptural arts who will draw upon their diverse expertise and inspirations to tackle collaboratively the technical challenges from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. The project is also educating a new generation of scientists and students capable of developing new paradigms for functional nanomaterial and communicating the excitement and possibilities of these results to the public at large.
If successful, the benefits of this project will be to enable the easy and economical self-replication of complex three dimensional nanostructures using mass produced components, through our progress in meeting the challenges of preparing the difficult original template structures. Self-replication will also facilitate the evolution of better materials or devices from generation to generation. Thus, in the long term, a research group may develop a DNA-organized optical metamaterial, and then immediately obtain large quantities of the prototype by introducing the initial template into a vat of components routinely ordered from a general foundry; similarly, a medical team may be able to create a complex immunotherapeutic vaccine by evolving a DNA nanostructure which displays a variety of antigens and adjuvants in some optimal, but initially unknown, three dimensional configuration; in the same vein, an environmental cleanup crew may be able to produce rapidly large quantities of a nanodevice tailored for breaking down different water borne pollutants via the solar powered activity of multiple enzymes clustered around light harvesting complexes. Thus, the capabilities we are developing will facilitate previously unimagined methodologies in the production of useful and valuable new materials.
This project is jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
