William M. Shih, Ph.D.
Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School

DNA-based building blocks for future therapeutics

DNA origami, in which a long scaffold strand is assembled with a large number of short staple strands into parallel arrays of double helices, has proven a powerful method for custom nanofabrication. Although diverse shapes in 2D are possible, the single-layer rectangle has proven the most popular, as it features fast and robust folding and modular design of staple strands for simple abstraction to a regular pixel surface.

Here I will discuss the DNA-origami barrel architecture, built as stacked rings of double helices, that retains these appealing features, while extending construction into 3D. I will discuss how we can use these architectures to scaffold liposome assembly, and how they can serve as building blocks for nanocapsules for future therapeutic application.

Host: Associate professor Ebbe Sloth Andersen, iNANO & Department of Molecularbiology and Genetics, Aarhus University