Structural DNA & RNA Nanotechnology

Natural DNA and RNA are present in all cells as the carriers of genetic information that is passed down through generations. In this work, we are using these nucleic acids as building materials at the nanometer-scale (nanoscale), which is 10,000x smaller than the thickness of a single human hair. We create complex 2D and 3D organized materials using nucleic acids, which we are applying to a broad range of revolutionary applications including: (1) mimicking viruses for vaccines and the targeted delivery of therapeutics such as CRISPR, messenger RNA, and siRNA; (2) organizing chromophores or dyes to mimic light-harvesting complexes to control quantum information for quantum sensing and computing; and (3) organizing high density light-emitting molecules for massive, exabyte-scale molecular data storage, retrieval, and computing. The overall size of the icosahedral structured DNA nanoparticle shown is approximately 40 nanometers, whereas the diameter of the duplex of DNA shown composing each edge of the nanoparticle is 2 nanometers, and the thickness of a human hair is approximately 10,000 to 100,000 nanometers.