DNA Origami

Paul Rothemund at Caltech has used 200 or more DNA strands to make a number of whimsical structures: a square, a triangle, a five-pointed star, a smiley face, the letters D-N-A, a rough picture of a double helix, a map of the western hemisphere. They do have practical uses and may potentially be used to create nanodevices.

A physicist, for example, might attach nano-sized semiconductor ‘quantum dots’ in a pattern that creates a quantum computer. A biologist might use DNA origami to take proteins which normally occur separately in nature, and organize them into a multi-enzyme factory that hands a chemical product from one enzyme machine to the next in the manner of an assembly line.

I told you science could be fun.

First seen at Medgadget.
Caltech Press Release, March 15, 2006