[NetBehaviour] DNA origami yields micro map

[marc]

DNA origami yields micro map
Molecular artwork could point way for nanotech applications.

By Helen Pilcher.

Technology really is shrinking the globe. In a map of the Americas 
unveiled in this week's Nature1, the journey from Los Angeles to New 
York becomes a hop of just tens of nanometres. That's a scale of 
1:200,000,000,000,000.

The entire western hemisphere is smaller than a bacterium, and 50 
billion copies of the chart could fit inside a drop of water. This might 
seem tiny, but the map, which is made of DNA, is the biggest and most 
elaborate nanoscale object created in the lab so far.

Yet its cartographer, Paul Rothemund from the California Institute of 
Technology, Pasadena, is not satisfied. "I had wanted to make a map of 
the entire world, but I didn't have enough time," he says. "I feel 
terrible about it."

Rothemund has invented what he calls 'DNA origami', a method for 
building just about any two-dimensional pattern out of DNA molecules. 
His portfolio includes smiley faces, triangles, snowflakes and flowers.

Each item takes a month to plan and a few hours to make. All are made of 
a standard, single strand of viral DNA folded back and forth over rows 
of double helices in a template shape. The shape is maintained by DNA 
'staples' - specially designed short strands - that stop the viral 
strand from unravelling.

more...
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060313/full/060313-8.html