DMREF/Collaborative Research: DNA-based Sensing, Communicating, and Phase-Separating Materials

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Robotic materials are an emerging class of materials that integrate actuation, sensing, communication, and computing functions. Examples include artificial skins with embedded electronics for sensing, and composites with adaptive texture morphing for camouflage. While there has been significant progress in developing macroscopic robotic materials, integrating robotic functions at the nano to microscale remains a challenge. DNA is as an excellent candidate for creating such robotic nanomaterials because it enables fabrication of nanostructures with unprecedented complex geometry and reconfigurability. This Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) award supports fundamental research to enable development of robotic DNA materials with sensing, communicating, and phase separating functions, integrating multidisciplinary expertise in DNA nanotechnology, single molecule measurements, and molecular modeling. The team will create DNA nanostructures that sense the local environment and assemble those structures into larger systems that transmit signals or exhibit collective behaviors. This will enable materials that change their structure, adapt their properties, or modify their environment in response to external triggers, which could have a range of applications in nanomanufacturing, biological sensing, energy harvesting or storage, lab-on-a-chip systems, and drug delivery. This project will also provide unique training opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students in DNA nanotechnology, molecular robotics, single-molecule measurements, and multi-scale modeling. The researchers will organize workshops to facilitate sharing of new materials design and modeling methods and develop curricula in robotic nanomaterials. Furthermore, this project's findings will be integrated into outreach programs in Central Ohio and North Carolina to generate interest in science and engineering from the next generation workforce.Robotic materials that integrate sensing, actuation, and communication and processing of information at nano- to microscales can provide many technological benefits to society, with applications ranging from nanomanufacturing to medicine. This research investigates the forces, signals, and mechanisms that enable the development of DNA-based robotic materials that sense forces under various loading conditions, communicate signals over long distances, and exhibit phase separating functionalities. To achieve these functions, the team will leverage the well-defined nanoscale geometry and dynamic properties of DNA nanostructures and the specificity and programmability of DNA binding interactions. Multi-scale molecular modeling methods will guide the design of DNA devices with targeted structural, mechanical, and dynamic properties with feedback from single molecule characterization methods. The team will create materials via hierarchical self-assembly that leverage individual device properties and interactions between devices to expand sensing capabilities, transmit signals via propagated conformational changes, and exhibit collective behaviors driven by local interactions. This will provide a foundation to develop new and complex robotic materials from the nano- to micron-scale that operate at room temperature in aqueous environments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.