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Information Directed Molecular Technology: Programming Nucleic Acid Self-Assembly

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Date: 03-31-2009
Start Time: 11:00am
End Time: 12:00pm
Speaker: Peng Yin , Senior Postdoctoral Scholar
From: California Institute of Technology
Location: Interschool Lab, Room 750 CEPSR

This talk will describe my work and plans on engineering information directed self-assembly of nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) structures and devices, and on exploiting such systems to do useful molecular work, e.g. templating molecular entities into functional devices and materials, and  probing and programming biological processes for bioimaging and therapeutic applications.

Specifically, I will first present a rudimentary programming language that enables user-friendly design of the dynamic behavior of synthetic nucleic acid systems (Yin et al, Nature, 451:318, 2008). The language is based on the graphical abstraction of a DNA hairpin motif, which physically implements a programmable kinetic trap. A high level molecular program specifies the connection of such kinetic traps on a free energy landscape, and defines the system's reaction pathway and dynamic behavior. A variety of molecular programs were experimentally executed: the catalytic formation of DNA branch junctions, a cross catalytic circuit, the triggered growth of a binary molecular "tree", and the autonomous unidirectional motion of a DNA "walker". In a related work, the abstraction of a 42 base single-stranded DNA motif is used to direct the self-assembly of molecular tubes with monodisperse, programmable circumferences (Yin et al, Science, 321:824, 2008). The self-assembled nucleic acid structures can serve as templates to organize molecular entities (e.g. proteins, gold nanoparticles, and carbon nanotubes) into functional materials. The dynamic self-assembling process can be interfaced with biological molecular processes, and provide powerful molecular instrumentation tools for systems biology and developmental biology research and potentially molecular therapeutic tools with single cell precision.

The above work and plans will bring us closer to the vision of information directed molecular technology: by programming a user-friendly molecular controller, humans freely specify and realize their functional needs in the molecular world.