QuBIC: Molecular Robotics for DNA Nanostructures

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EIA-0218359Hao Yan Duke UniversityMolecular Robotics for DNA NanostructuresThe objective of this project is to develop molecular motors that are incorporated into self-assembled DNA lattices. The main goal of this project will be to develop experimental proof-of concept demonstrations of the construction of novel DNA motors such as a DNA motor that is designed to have both translational and rotational motion. Incorporation of molecular motors into DNA arrays has many applications: It can selectively manipulate molecules using molecular motor devices arranged on DNA tiling arrays; A DNA array of motors may offer a mechanism to do DNA computation of arrays whose elements (the tiles) hold state; Parallel cellular automata computation may be executed from arrays of finite state automata each of which hold state. This project is also developing DNA nanostructures containing motors that operate autonomously without environmental changes. Methods are being tested to use "fuel DNA" to provide energy to drive the motion of DNA nanostructures. As an alternative approach, experiments are conducted to incorporate protein motors such as Kinesin into DNA lattices. In particular, the use of selective aptamer binding to link protein motors to periodic sites of a DNA lattice will be tested. The resulting arrays of protein motors have many applications to nanorobotics, e.g., they are potentially very useful for sorting and transport of nanoparticles.