"Speaker 1: I'm Stefan Niekamp and we are here at UCSF in Shawn Douglas' lab we are
working on DNA nanotechnology.
For instance we're developing devices to fight cancer in the future, and I'm here as an exchange
student from Munich from the technical university where I'm enrolled in my master's program
at the moment, and this summer I will start my PhD here at UCSF in Biophysics.
First place is actually to the teachers because they really talk to me and I learned a lot
about physics and actually I really loved physics so I started to study physics in Munich
at the technical university.
And, and this was just plain physics, and then I really worked in superconductivity.
But later in the summer school I figured out that biophysics is even more fun because you
can apply it to really life science and there will help people.
So that's what I really enjoyed.
And then in Munich there's Hendrick Dietz lab.
And he's actually a friend of Shawn Douglas.
And so he's working on DNA nanotechnology too.
And that's how I got introduced into this into DNA nanotechnology.
Speaker 2: So my name is Shawn Douglas, and I'm an assistant professor.
One thing that we're trying to address is how to build chemotherapies, or better cancer
therapeutics.
You'd want it to be safe and effective and you'd actually want it to destroy only the
cancer cells and leave everything else alone.
So, you want to spare all the healthy cells.
Speaker 1: Well, first thing usually if we build a structure we use a computer to design
our structure there is software you can use like CADnano, and then we can order all the
DNA we need to make our structures.
And then we run it in a gel electrophoresis and this helps you to, yeah, separate the
structure from not folded structure in a way.
And you can look at that, and then later you can cut out this specific band from your gel
and then use that, purify it, and apply that to, to your device, which you later insert
into your microscope to look at it.
And the microscope is a transmission electron microscope so that means, it's basically like,
like a light microscope.
But in this case you're using electrons to look at your stuff.
And you're not using light.
Electrons in a way pass light, as you might know so, they can behave as waves or as particles
and you can use them to get very short wavelengths to look at very small things in nanometer
scale, and that's what we're doing with them.
Using this microscope we can really see how a structure looks like.
So, for instance, on the computer we would design it and later you can see it on the
microscope.
Wow, that's, that's really great fun.
So, if you can see that stuff is something I designed and I made and it works.
It's always a great, great moment.
Speaker 3: This will be very-
Speaker 1: And yes, I had some physics, I did super conductivity, and , and I will,
that's something where I didn't really see what effect you can really have on the life
of humans.
So, with this it's way closer to that, and that's why I'm really excited about that.
And I still can use my physics like way of thinking and the knowledge to, and apply it
to different kind of subject now.
But, It's still, still in a way you still can think as a physicist so I can still help
to solve these problems.
So if we really can figure out all these steps we need for like drug delivery, to help fight
cancer that would be, really awesome.
So, but I know for sure that will take a while but I hope we will get there in the future
so.
But that would be really great thing to help people with and to fight cancer so, this is
one of my bigger aims to it so.