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DNA is Blueprint, Contractor and Construction Worker for New Structures

In the Northwestern study, gold nanoparticles take the place of atoms. The novel part of the work is that the researchers use DNA to drive the assembly of the crystal. Changing the DNA strand's sequence of As, Ts, Gs and Cs changes the blueprint, and thus the shape, of the crystalline structure. The two crystals reported in Nature, both made of gold, have different properties because the particles are arranged differently.

"We are now closer to the dream of learning, as nanoscientists, how to break everything down into fundamental building blocks, which for us are nanoparticles, and reassembling them into whatever structure we want that gives us the properties needed for certain applications," said Chad A. Mirkin, one of the paper's senior authors…

When materials scientists and developers discovered the neat, multi-functional, elegantly designed biological structure of protein "nanotubes" in eukaryote cells they eagerly 'borrowed' the designs – thought to arise spontaneously through the binding affinities of the state-switching proteins involved – to construct similar artificial ['artifactual'] structures of carbon atoms (occasionally doped with gold or other atoms) for use in development of future generations of electronic devices and medical treatment delivery systems.

Then, much to the surprise of scientists generally, it was discovered that life can fabricate nanotubes of particular elemental form too – as 'artifacts' in their environment, not as pieces-parts of themselves. The work appears in the December 7 issue of PNAS and was partially funded by the Center for Nanoscale Innovation for Defense…

Nanotube-producing Bacteria Show Manufacturing Promise:

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