Too Old For Building Blocks? Not These.

Cover of Science, November 30, 2012.

This looks like the type of Lego kit I would get my grandkids for Christmas, or a new version of Tetris. It is, in fact, much cooler. These are ‘DNA bricks’—short strands of DNA that plug into each other like a peg in a hole. I’m excited to tell you that the scientists at the Wyss Institute in Boston, MA, who developed this technology were recipients of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which encourages out of the box thinking specifically for young researchers. So what can you do with these bricks? Build microscopic 3-D structures. In some cases, if the recipe of DNA bricks is just right the set of bricks can self-assemble. In fact the scientists have already created 100 different self-assembling structures (like the ones pictured above on the cover of the November 30^th issue of Science). These structures could be used for designing intricate labyrinths for everything from biomedicine to nanotechnology. Very, very exciting stuff.

Check out these quick flicks to see the range of structures up close; the second one looks like a collection of rainbow worms attacking each other.

Building 3D Structures with DNA Bricks

DNA Bricks – Molecular Animation

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