Seeman Student Travel Awards at FNANO 2026
Samia Bakhtawar, University of Surrey, UK
Ned Seeman showed that DNA can serve not only as the molecule of life but also as a programmable material that directs how matter assembles at the nanoscale. My research builds on this vision by developing control over DNA strand-displacement reactions through molecular design and nanoparticle-mediated release. I study how sequence design influences reaction rates and how DNA attached to gold nanoparticles can store and release strands that trigger them. These nanoparticles influence how densely DNA packs on their surface, how readily it binds to complementary DNA, and when signals are released. By understanding how DNA design, nanoparticle size, and strand release shape these reactions, I aim to establish design rules for predictable DNA circuits and nanoscale systems.
Corey Becker, Harvard University, USA
I am drawn to the nanosciences by the potential to create new tools for the control of individual molecules, enabling ever-increasing control over complex biological systems. In my work I have tried to embrace this vision – Ned Seeman’s vision of controlling matter with chemical information – by bringing the spatial precision of DNA origami into a new cellular, micron-scale environment. If we can precisely control the spatial arrangement of biomolecule across cellular scales, we can develop increasingly sophisticated tools to emulate, control, and direct cellular processes, with important implications for both basic science and therapeutic applications. I focus on a hierarchical self-assembly technique, crisscross DNA origami. While a powerful approach for forming multi-micron structures, crisscross origami has thus far been confined to two dimensions; cells, however, are distinctly three-dimensional. My work has focused on extending crisscross origami into the third dimension, opening a new design space for our structures.
Anthony Vetturini, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
The ability to explore and control features of both biological and inorganic materials makes DNA origami an attractive manufacturing methodology with nanometer-scale precision. However, its intricate design complexities significantly limits its potential, posing barriers to wider adoption. I’m driven to break these barriers, as doing so may broaden the scope of achievable designer materials. What excites me most is closing the gap between what researchers can envision and what they can build. Currently, design complexities may force researchers to compromise on their structural ambitions, and automated tools can reach only a limited portion of the design space. My work expands this reach by enabling a broader range of geometries through a web-based platform that eliminates any programming requirements for a designer. My overall goal is to shift a researcher’s role from tedious nucleotide-level design intricacies to more high-level architectural exploration, ultimately accelerating discovery of functional microscale materials.
Dayoung Gloria Lee, Columbia University, USA
My research aims to use DNA origami frames as modular building blocks to direct epitaxial growth and create layered, three-dimensional (3D) multi-shell architectures with programmable morphology and transport behavior. This approach is greatly inspired by Ned Seeman’s vision of using chemical information to control how matter forms across length scales, rather than only to specify final structure. Building on his foundational contributions to nucleic acid nanotechnology, my work treats DNA as an information-bearing material that governs growth pathways, anisotropic interactions, and collective behavior in soft-matter systems, rather than merely as a structural scaffold. By controlling kinetic growth conditions, including temperature, and chemically encoding growth rules, I demonstrate how hierarchical mesoscale patterns and function emerge. By leveraging our DNA-programmable soft matter, I aim to develop the foundations of nanoscience by connecting molecular design to morphology, mass transport, and optical response.
