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Thank you. Hey, why don't you take a seat?
Thanks. That is really fascinating.
Yes, it is wonderful how you can make something so complex out of something really simple.
really simple. Yes, the possibilities are endless and the material is
just everywhere. Definitely. Hey, do you fold as well?
Actually I do fold. I fold DNA.
DNA? I didn't know that was possible!
Let me show you how.
DNA origami follows one simple rule.
Whenever two strands of DNA match they bind and form a double helix.
What if you want to make a crocodile?
You use DNA that binds in different places.
And DNA origami is so simple.
You draw to shape you want on the computer the computer calculates the
sequences you need
you email the sequences off to a company and then
you get such a little white box. Each of the wells
here contains one DNA sequence.
That sounds like something from science fiction. But since 2006 it's been a
reality
So, shall we make some origami then? Yes, let's.
Then we just need to mix.
I am now just pipetting DNA in water.
so each of the droplets now contains one DNA sequence. We mix
them with a pipette tip and put them in this
tube and then we need to heat and the DNA origami is ready
If your paper origami model
was the size of the actual DNA origami channel then a grain of sand would be the size of
Mount Everest. Really? So you are a nano designer?
Maybe. But just like origami has applications in the real world like
folding airbags to make cars safer
we're also working towards applications. We're trying to make these small
channels from DNA origami.
We can make them change size and shape reacting to their environment.
We can make them punch holes into membranes and we can even make them glow
by attaching special molecules to DNA.
How do you know the DNA channels actually punch holes into membranes
when they are too small to see? Good point. It's
very hard to observe a single channel
directly
but we can observe their function. We seal this
glass capillary with a membrane. When a channel
punches a hole into this membrane the seal is no longer perfect and we can
observe a current going through.
Okay. That's pretty cool.
But is it as cool as origami crocodiles?
Many genetic diseases lead to defective channels in cells.
Now imagine what we could do if we could create
artificial channels for every patient that way we need them.
With DNA origami we can build on the nanoscale.
A versatile tool with versatile applications from medicine to
miniaturized computers.
We may be curious to see what is yet to come.