An Active DNA Liquid

Speaker

Prof. Omar Saleh

Location

BioE 1001

Info

Abstract: We seek to create self-assembled biomolecular liquid droplets that act as rough mimics of biological condensates, and to engineer mesoscopic structure and function into the droplets through molecular design. We particularly form liquids from DNA nanostars, multi-armed DNA particles that condense through base-pairing interactions. These liquids show material properties similar to biological condensates, while also displaying an extraordinary sensitivity to the number of arms of the constituent particles. I will discuss various approaches to functionalizing these DNA liquids, including by infusing them with gene-length linear DNA strands; by interfacing the liquids with DNA enzymes; and by creating complex mesoscopic structures formed from 2 immiscible DNA liquid phases.

Host

Luc Jaeger

Research Area

Neuroscience and Behavior

Resources

An Active DNA Liquid by Prof. Omar Saleh