40th Annual Naff Symposium chem.as.uky.edu/naff-symposium University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Dr. Hao Yan, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry & The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University

Abstract: The central task of nanotechnology is to control motions and organize matter with nanometer precision. To achieve this, scientists have investigated a large variety of materials including inorganic materials, organic molecules, and biological polymers as well as different methods that can be sorted into so-called “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches. Among all of the remarkable achievements made, the success of DNA self-assembly in building programmable nanopatterns has attracted broad attention. In this talk I will present our efforts in using DNA as an information-coding polymer to program and construct DNA nano-architectures with complex geometrical features. Use of designer DNA architectures as molecular sensor, actuator and scaffolds will also be discussed.