DNA-based Modular Nanorobotics
This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Protein-Templated Reactions Using DNA-Antibody Conjugates, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202200971. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
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“This document is the unedited Author’s version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in ACS Sensors, copyright © [include copyright notice from the published article] after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssensors.1c02642
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.
“A text’s unity lies not in its origin, but in its destination.” – Roland Barthes (1967, translated 1977)
I am in the middle of writing my PhD thesis. This is generally not considered an easy process, and I concur with that sentiment. For me, it includes stretches of intense productivity, digging for long-forgotten data, and dry eyes. There are also long periods of staring out of the window, while stewing on my thoughts. In one such stewing session, my thoughts wandered towards the quote above. It is from the essay “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes. Barthes disapproved of the idea that to find the true meaning of a text, one must consider it through the identity of its scripter. Instead, he argued that meaning lies exclusively in the words themselves, and their impressions on the reader. Thus, the unity of a text is not found in its origin, but in its destination. As Barthes wrote himself, “writing is that into which every subject escapes, the trap where all identity is lost, beginning with the very identity of the body that writes.”1 “The author enters into their own death, and writing begins.”2
Scientific research is an exercise in failing. Imagine you have to overcome an unknown obstacle course – it is already hard when you can see what you are doing (and where you are going). Now imagine doing that in the dark! This is what most research is like. Many attempts to explore beyond the edge of human knowledge, where we are in the dark, are simply doomed to fail. There is hope though: each failure teaches us a little bit more about the obstacles we will encounter. Bit by bit, more experiments and failures light the way. Until eventually, we happen upon success. Then we write a paper about it, and hope the reviewers agree with our definition of success. A career in academia thus requires dedication, luck, and an unfailing ability to get up after falling down. Most of all, it requires time: time to learn, to struggle, and to do good science.
DNA-Robotics 