{"id":548254,"date":"2006-03-16T07:39:03","date_gmt":"2006-03-16T07:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548254-smallest-smiley-made-from-dna.html"},"modified":"2006-03-16T07:39:03","modified_gmt":"2006-03-16T07:39:03","slug":"smallest-smiley-made-from-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548254-smallest-smiley-made-from-dna.html","title":{"rendered":"Smallest Smiley made from DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifty billion Smileys, each a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be made at a stroke under the technique pioneered by Paul Rothemund at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). <\/font><\/p>\n

DNA, the molecule that comprises living things, has long been known for its versatility as a microscopic building block. <\/font><\/p>\n

The molecule can be "cut" using enzymes and reassembled using matching rungs in its double-helix structure. <\/font><\/p>\n

This theoretically opens the way to making DNA quantum computers and nano-level devices including injectable robots that can monitor the body’s tissues for good health. <\/font><\/p>\n

However, until now, nano-assembly has been a complex atom-by-atom procedure that is also costly, because it is carried out in a vacuum or at extremely cold temperatures. <\/font><\/p>\n

Rothemund, writing in today’s issue of Nature, describes a far simpler and much cheaper process in which long, single strands of DNA can be folded back and forth to form a basic scaffold. <\/font><\/p>\n

The basic structure is then supplemented by around 200 shorter strands, which both strengthen it and act rather like pixels in a computer or TV image, thus providing a shape that can bear a complex pattern. <\/font><\/p>\n

In a potent demonstration of his so-called DNA origami technique, Rothemund has created half a dozen shapes, including a five-pointed star, a snowflake, a picture of the double helix and a\u00a0 map of the Americas in which one nanometre (one billionth of a metre) represents 120km. <\/font><\/p>\n

Rothemund, whose paper is published in the British science weekly Nature, has been working on flat, two-dimensional shapes but says that 3-D structures in DNA should be quite feasible with this technique, Caltech said in a press release. <\/font><\/p>\n

One application would be a nano-scale "cage" in which pharmaceutical researchers, working on novel drugs, could sequester enzymes until they were ready for use in turning other proteins on and off. <\/font><\/p>\n

"In this research, Paul has scored a few unusual ‘firsts’ for humanity," his colleague, Erik Winfree, said. <\/font><\/p>\n

"In a typical reaction, he can make about 50 billion Smiley faces. I think this is the most concentrated happiness ever created." <\/font><\/p>\n

Winfree said there could be huge potential benefits from this apparently whimsical work, as it provided a major new tool for putting molecular-level machinery together. <\/font><\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge ||<\/em> \u00a0 <\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nanotechnologist has created the world’s smallest and most plentiful Smiley – a tiny face measuring a few billionths of a metre across that is assembled from strands of DNA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}