DNA Can Act Like Velcro For Nanoparticles, Basis for New Fuels, Plastics and Electronics

DNA Can Act Like Velcro For Nanoparticles, Basis for New Fuels, Plastics and Electronics | Before It's News: "DNA can do more than direct how bodies our made — it can also direct the composition of many kinds of materials, according to a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne researcher Byeongdu Lee and his colleagues at Northwestern University discovered that strands of DNA can act as a kind of nanoscopic 'Velcro' that binds different nanoparticles together. 'It’s generally difficult to precisely control the assembly of these types of nanostructures,' Lee said. 'By using DNA, we’re borrowing nature’s power.'

Argonne researcher Byeongdu Lee has determined that different shapes of gold nanoparticles, above, will self-assemble into different configurations when attached to single strands of DNA."