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Research Projects
Local Hybridization Chain-Reactions on DNA Nanostructures
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Abstract
A majority of enzyme-free DNA hybridization reactions in DNA-based molecular systems are limited by the diffusion process - the reaction rates occur faster in the presence of high concentration of reactants, and vice versa. However spurious/unintended interactions are found to be correlated with high concentration of reactants. A solution to reduce spurious interactions is to decrease the concentration of the reactants; however, the hybridization reaction rates, due to the diffusion limitation, are taking longer for the reactions to complete. Because spurious interactions mitigate the overall functionalities of the DNA-based molecular systems, we propose an alternative method (a follow-up work by Chandran et. al. in 2011) to reduce the interactions. By directly performing the DNA hybridization reactions on fixed nanoscale substrates instead of free-floating in solutions, we conjecture that the spurious interactions are reduced due to spatial locality. This method is expected to achieve minimal spurious interactions and fast DNA hybridization reaction rates. This research initiative proposal presentation will cover a simple design of local hybridization-chained reactions on DNA nanosructures as well as preliminary experimental results.
Advisor(s): John Reif
Chris Dwyer, Thom LaBean