Seeman Student Travel Awards at FNANO24

Eason Cao, Yale University, USA
“Dr. Seeman invented structural DNA nanotechnology with a vision that DNA scaffolds can organize proteins into self-assembling crystals for structural determination. The nuclear pore complex (NPC) has long been seen as the ‘Holy Grail’ of structural biology not only for its sheer size, but also for the unstructured phenylalanine-glycine (FG) domains in the central channel that elude crystallography and electron microscopy. Our NPC mimics extend Ned’s vision, demonstrating the emergence of collective morphology, dynamics, and function as the result of DNA-scaffolded assembly of FG-Nups. The development of advanced NPC mimics such as the dynamic ones shown here, expand the application of DNA nanotechnology in cell biology and push the boundaries of both fields.”

Iris Seitz, Aalto University, Finland
“Have you, for instance, ever imagined a virus-like particle having the shape of a donut? A particle, whose shape clearly differs from the symmetry viruses are known to have, most commonly being helical or icosahedral. Achieving the formation of such particles requires control. More precisely, control over the shape, size, and topology of capsid protein assemblies. The type of control, which is characteristic for DNA nanotechnology, and which allows us to fabricate nanostructures with a custom, well-defined shape in a programmable manner. DNA nanotechnology allows us to precisely place cargo molecules on the surface of our DNA template. Therefore, our results not only provide important insights into the assembly of virus capsid proteins in a controlled manner, but also support the development of multipurpose systems for next generation cargo protection, targeting and gene delivery.”

Julie Finkel, INSERM, France
“We developed a new method to design DNA nanostructures with complex curves defined in 3D space, managing to produce and characterize ten origami structures with unprecedentedly complex curvatures. By innovatively expanding the range of achievable shapes in DNA nanotechnology, this work relates to Ned Seeman’s vision of using DNA as a programmable building material for the construction of complex nanoscale structures, with the goal of advancing science and technology. By founding ISNSCE, Ned Seeman encouraged interdisciplinary collaboration within the field of DNA nanotechnology. At FNANO, with the support of ISNSCE, my colleague Dr. Anjelica Kucinic and I will introduce the organization WONDER: Women’s Organization for Nanotechnology in DNA for Engineering and Research. Our goal is to gather and promote women from different backgrounds and ambitions in our field, hopefully echoing Ned Seeman’s commitment to collaboration and community.”

Karol Woloszyn, New York University, USA
“For the past six years, I’ve worked in the Structural DNA Nanotechnology Group at NYU, formerly led by the late Ned Seeman, where I spearheaded significant advances in DNA crystal engineering, tensegrity triangle modification and supramolecular self-assembly, and free energy tuning for polymorphic crystallization. Much of my research has dealt with Ned’s vision in the form of the DNA tensegrity triangle – a motif that he and Chengde Mao devised in the 2000s. I’ve since been able to greatly increase control and customizability of this motif through programmable augmentation of cavity size, algorithmic self-assembly into a variety of space groups, and demonstrated control over tertiary chirality. Now pursuing my PhD at NYU, I hope to programmably functionalize lattices composed of these motifs with various other moieties – macromolecules, catalysts, graphitic materials – to create functional, chimeric 3D DNA nanomaterials – all in pursuit of Ned’s vision of controlling matter on the nanoscale with chemical information.”

Karuna Skipper, University of Sydney, Australia
“Traditionally, liquid-liquid phase separated (LLPS) systems result in inherently disordered products, creating liquid droplets with no nanoscale control of subunit position or order. Our research, creating microscale architectures in LLPS DNA droplets, attempts to address this limitation. Through the physical design of DNA subunits, the onset of phase separation is controlled; the interaction between subunits is similarly directed through modulation of the DNA base sequences. These ultimately allow for the creation of structured LLPS droplets, with controllable 2- and 3- layer designs. These types of morphology provide new possibilities in the creation of DNA-based artificial cells.”

Liangxiao Chen, Arizona State University, USA
“In Ned Seeman’s book Structural DNA Nanotechnology, he has a statement saying that ‘using RNA as the basis of nanotechnological constructs is that the products can, in principle, be produced within a living cell, by the process of transcription’. Echoing Seeman’s insights on the potential of RNA in nanotechnology, my research introduces a novel technique named double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) bricks. Inspired by the natural ribosomal RNA maturation, we leverage the post-transcriptional cleavage of a polycistronic RNA transcript into individual brick sequences, which self-fold into double-stranded tiles and self-assemble into periodic arrays or finite-sized nanostructures via programmable branched kissing-loop (bKL) interactions. We successfully achieved finite-sized 2D and 3D nanostructures composed of up to 100 distinct dsRNA bricks with over 18000 nucleotides, indicating the most complex RNA nanostructures ever made. This work marks a significant advancement towards the scalable production of complex RNA nanostructures, mirroring Seeman’s concept of harnessing sequence information for complex RNA nanostructure synthesis.”

Tingting Zheng, Queen Mary University of London, UK
“Integrins, transmembrane proteins that promote cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix (ECM), play a critical role in cancer progression. Upregulation of epithelial-specific integrin αvβ6 has been linked to worse overall survival rates in several malignancies. We developed a biomimetic platform using DNA origami to control the multivalency of immobilised cell-binding ligands at the single-molecule level with nanoscale spatial resolution. This enabled us to explore the spatial requirements for maximal cooperative integrin/receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs)-dependent biological activities in cancer. The integration of chemical information into the control of matter not only enables the precise fabrication of nanomaterials but also provides opportunities for understanding and manipulating complex biological processes, such as those involved in cancer biology.”