Dr Jon Bath

Abstract:

The performance of biosensors strongly depends on the nanoarchitecture of the biosensing surface. In many studies the bioreceptor density, orientation and accessibility are often overlooked, resulting in suboptimal biosensing devices. Here, DNA origami structures were decorated with aptamers and studied as a novel tool to structure the biosensor surface with nanoscale precision, favoring interaction between target and aptamer. Using this novel method to engineer biosensing interfaces of two in-house developed biosensing platforms, we were able to accurately detect the presence of a specific target and to compete with existing biosensors in reproducibility, SNR and LOD, without the need for backfilling.

Abstract:

Molecular machines that assemble polymers in a programmed sequence are fundamental to life. They are also an achievable goal of nanotechnology. Here, we report synthetic molecular machinery made from DNA which controls and records the formation of covalent bonds. We show that an autonomous cascade of DNA hybridization reactions can create oligomers, from building blocks linked by olefin or peptide bonds, with a sequence defined by a reconfigurable molecular program. The system can also be programmed to achieve combinatorial assembly. The sequence of assembly reactions, and thus the structure, of each oligomer synthesized is recorded in a DNA molecule which enables this information to be recovered by PCR amplification followed by DNA sequencing.