DNA robots are designed in minutes instead of days

One day, scientists believe that small DNA-based robots and other nanotubes will deliver medicine into our bodies, detect the presence of deadly pathogens and manufacture smaller electronics.

Researchers have taken a big step towards the future by developing a new tool that can design far more complex DNA robots and nanotubes than was ever possible in a fraction of the time.

In an article published in the magazine today Natural materials, Ohio State University researchers – led by former engineering doctoral student Chao-Min Huang – unveiled new software they call MagicDNA.

The software helps researchers design ways to take small pieces of DNA and combine them into complex structures with parts such as rotors and hinges that can move different tasks, including drug delivery.

Researchers have been doing this for a number of years with slower tools with boring hand steps, said Carlos Castro, co-author of the study and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the state of Ohio.

“But now, nano devices that we may have taken a few days to design before, we only take a few minutes,” Castro said.

And now researchers can make much more complex – and useful – nano-devices.

“Previously, we could build devices with up to six individual components and connect them with joints and hinges and try to perform complex movements,” said co-author of the study, Hai-Jun Su, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at Ohio State said. .

“With this software, it’s not difficult to make robots or other devices with more than 20 components that are much easier to control. It’s a big step in our ability to design nano – devices that can perform the complex actions we wants them to do. “

The software has a variety of benefits that will help scientists design better, more useful nano-devices and, according to the researchers, shorten the time they use daily.

One benefit is that it enables researchers to really execute the entire design in 3-D. Earlier design tools only allowed creation in 2-D, which forced researchers to map their creations in 3-D. This meant that designers could not make their devices too complex.

The software also enables designers to build DNA structures ‘from bottom to top’ or ‘from bottom to bottom’.

In the bottom-up design, researchers take individual DNA strands and decide how they want to organize them into the structure, enabling fine control over the local structure and properties of devices.

But they can also follow a ‘top-down’ approach where they decide how to shape their overall device geometrically, and then automate the way the DNA strands are put together.

By combining the two, the complexity of the overall geometry can be increased, while maintaining precise control over individual component properties, Castro said.

Another important element of the software is that it allows simulations of how designed DNA devices would move and work in the real world.

“Because you’re complicating these structures, it’s difficult to predict exactly what they’ll look like and what they’ll look like, ‘Castro said.

“It’s critical to be able to simulate how our devices will actually work. Otherwise we’re wasting a lot of time.”

As proof of the software’s ability, co-author Anjelica Kucinic, a doctoral student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the State of Ohio, led the researchers to create and characterize many nanostructures designed by the software.

Some of the devices they created included robotic weapons with claws that could pick up smaller items, and a hundred-nanometer-sized structure that looked like an airplane (the “airplane” is 1000 times smaller than the width of a plane). human hair).

The ability to make more complex nanotubes means they can do more useful things and even perform multiple tasks with one device, Castro said.

For example, it is one thing to have a DNA robot that can detect a certain pathogen after injection into the bloodstream.

“But a more complicated device can not only detect that something bad is happening, but can also respond by releasing a drug or trapping the pathogen,” he said.

“We want to be able to design robots that respond in a certain way to a stimulus or move in a certain way.”

Castro said he expects the MagicDNA software to be used at universities and other research labs for the next few years. But its use may expand in the future.

“There will be more and more commercial interest in DNA nanotechnology,” he said. “I think we’ll start seeing commercial applications of DNA nano-devices within the next five to ten years and we’m optimistic that this software can help promote it.”