The design of optimal nucleic acid oligomers capable of rapid and specific isothermal binding to long single-stranded DNA or RNA sequences often exceeding a thousand bases in length (e.g., genomes, mRNA, or lncRNA), remains a significant challenge. This endeavor holds substantial implications not only for DNA nanotechnology but also for understanding fundamental biological processes and...
DNA-based sensors have come a long way and are now capable of detecting ions, molecules, proteins, and nucleic acids, generating an output response. However, processing different inputs typically requires fuel for strand displacement reactions or purification steps, which makes DNA computing relatively slow.
In this talk, a novel approach to Brownian DNA computing is presented. It utilizes...
Biological membranes tightly regulate the spatio-temporal organisation of their machinery to facilitate key functionalities, such as signal transduction, molecular trafficking and cellular motion. Bottom-up synthetic biology aims to replicate in synthetic cells behaviours typically observed in living matter, allowing us to dissect biological phenomena as well as to unlock promised...
In homologous recombination, DNA segments are exchanged between chromosomes, a process critical to establishing genetic variation and healing DNA damage. To avoid detrimental effects, cells must ensure that homologous, not heterologous, segments are exchanged. Prior to exchange, however, pairing must occur; in the chaos of the cell nucleus, how do homologous segments find each other? [1]. The...
reactions. The central dogma and related biochemistry are rife with examples: gene i is transcribed into RNA i, which is translated into protein i; kinase n phosphorylates substrate m; protein p dimerizes with protein q. Engineered nucleic acid systems also often have this form: oligonucleotide i hybridizes to complementary oligonucleotide j; signal strand n displaces the output of seesaw gate...
The bottom-up self-assembly of photonic crystals with complex symmetries, such as diamond-type structures, requires molecular building blocks with programmable geometry and directional binding, which is challenging in conventional colloidal systems. [1] The DNA origami technique [2], which allows rational design of complex structures, is a powerful tool for this task. A direct rod-connected...
DNA origami nanotechnology has seen widespread use in research, yet its translation into commercial products remains limited.
In the context of enabling technologies for drug discovery, we developed and commercialized DNA origami nanolevers as functional biosensing elements for analyzing binding-induced conformational changes in proteins.
These proteins are tethered to a chip surface via DNA...
In digital biosensing, sensitive detection is enabled through isolation of individual biomarkers, followed by localized signal generation. While this approach has been widely adopted, its broader applicability can be enhanced by implementing nucleic acid (NA)-based components, offering advantages such as simple synthesis and high thermal stability. Additionally, alternative target confinement...
Self-assembly refers to the spontaneous organisation of components into ordered structures without external guidance. This phenomenon underpins many natural processes and is increasingly harnessed in materials science to build complex nano-structures. Inverse self-assembly seeks to leverage the tunability of colloidal interactions to design building blocks that drive the system toward a target...
The ability to isolate molecular targets from complex biological samples is crucial for many areas such as diagnostics, genetic analysis, and bionanotechnology. A variety of commercial methods exist for this purpose; however, they are often inflexible with restrictive sample requirements and high cost. Here we introduce LASSO, a simple, cost-effective, and generalized method for the capture of...
Florian Rothfischer1, Yihao Wang2, Lennart Weiß1, Christopher Pauer3, Kevin Lang3, Rabia Amin2, Xin Yin3, Elena Eiwanger3, Jan Lipfert4, Tim Liedl3, Friedrich C Simmel1, Joe Tavacoli3, and Aidin Lak2
1Department of Bioscience, TUM School of Natural Sciences, Technical University Munich, Am Coulombwall 4a, Munich, 85748, Germany.
2Institute for Electrical Measurement Science and Fundamental...
Inspired by its natural function as an information carrying molecule and motivated by its promising properties such as high stability [1] and high information density [2], DNA has emerged as an alternative medium for the long-term storage of digital information. As with any data storage medium, protection of the encoded information is desired for DNA data storage. Previous work has focused on...
Recently, periodic nanostructures made of DNA origami tiles have become a viable option for applications in fields like diagnostics, electronics, sensing and optics, especially in challenging applications like the creating metasurfaces with unique optical properties.$^1$ Main benefit with origami is its superior self-assembly properties and vast variety of functionalization schemes,$^2$ and in...
The goal of this project is to develop a synthetic system that can sense, process and actuate molecular information in a programmable manner. For this purpose, we developed a DNA based reaction cascade that undergoes two steps, generating two temporally resolved output signals. The two reaction centers, A and B, are localized few nanometers apart inside a DNA origami compartment. Upon...
In the field of micro- and nanomotors, uncovering the principles that govern their motion is essential not only for developing active materials for diverse applications, but for deepening our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying motion at the nanoscale. Active motion arises from the conversion of energy into mechanical work; however, effective propulsion requires a degree of...
Continuous Monitoring Biosensors (CMB) are at the forefront of the digital healthcare transformation, offering real-time measurement and novel metrics to improve disease management. While continuous glucose monitoring has set the gold standard, the development of CMB for other clinically relevant biomarkers remains challenging due to the absence of alternative enzymatic catalysts. To develop...
The coherent interaction of light with a single quantum emitter is at the heart of several quantum technologies, such as communications and computing [1]. However, this process is not currently achievable at room temperature in an efficient manner because of ultrafast phonon-induced dephasing. To accelerate light-emitter interactions in order to try and beat dephasing, while maintaining high...
Autonomous synthesis of sequence-defined polymers from a pool of monomers is considered to be one of the most important and difficult challenges in modern Chemistry and Synthetic Biology. In contrast, biological systems execute this task with astonishing efficiency while synthesizing nucleic acids and proteins from the available pools of NTPs or aminoacyl-tRNAs. Such accurate biopolymer...
Controlling the spatial and temporal dynamics of cytoskeletal components is a central challenge in the construction of synthetic cells. Here, we present a system in which synthetic cytoskeletal filaments composed of DNA tiles are assembled in situ via a UV-trigger and subsequently positioned through interaction with the Min protein system from Escherichia coli.
Specifically, we designed DNA...
