Mission accomplished. Except Rober wasn’t done yet. Out of curiosity — and in preparation for the challengers to follow — he wondered if it was possible to make an even smaller blaster. One, say, three million times smaller? To answer that, he asked Pallav Kosuri, an assistant professor at the Integrative Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, if it was possible.
Kosuri’s reply: Sure! You just need to make it out of DNA.
The technique Kosuri had in mind is known as “DNA origami,” and like its paper-based namesake, it is both simple and intriguing. The idea to make microscopic structures with folded DNA was conceived by Nadrian Seeman, a crystallographer, Kosuri explained in an interview with Freethink.
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