The perspective for nano-sized DNA robots

This articles aims to explain the basic concepts, perspectives and the main ethical considerations regarding the concept of DNA nano-robots. This outreach paper has been written with equal contributions from all the DNA-Robotics Early stage researches. Authors are listed in random order:

Quentin Vincentini, Lorena Baranda Pellejero, Aitor Patiño Díaz, Alba Monferrer i Sureda, Michael Pinner, Yash Bogawat, Minke Nijenhuis, Angel Santorelli, Nestor Sampedro, Marco Llocaico, Igor Baars, Mihir Dass, Karol Kolataj, Joakim Bohlin, Rafael Carrascosa Marzo.

How about making your own DNA origami?

Origami is the art of paper folding that has been practiced in Japan since Edo period (1603-1868), and then successfully introduced in the western culture. The goal of this art is to transform a dull piece of paper into sophisticated 3D sculptures by the sequence of folding and sculpting. Likewise Japanese origami, DNA origami is also a way of 3D-structures folding – folding in the nanoscale. In this technique instead of sheet of paper one uses hundreds of short DNA strands to fold a long circular DNA molecule (scaffold) into 3D DNA-based structures. In this post, I will try to convince you that DNA origami technique is nothing to be scared about. Frankly speaking, once you gain some basic knowledge and skills, it might be even easier to fold your fancy sculpture with DNA than using paper (at least if you have enough money and lab-facility to work with 🙂 ).

Color control

Hi all,

I belive that you all know me from my previous post, but if new on the blog, I am Karol Kolataj from Tim Liedl’s group in Munich.

I hope that up till now you like our blog. As we already moved to more science-focused part of the blog, in this entry I will show you colourful side of nanotechnology, and explain how scientists can control colour and shape of noble metal nanoparticles.