Watch a robot made of DNA swing its arm

DNA robots just got a remote control.
This microscopic robotic arm
is self-assembled and made up of folded DNA.
It’s a kind of DNA origami, which has been used
to build many things on the nanoscale--
miniscule letters, teddy bears, even the Mona Lisa.
Now researchers have shown the ability
to remotely control a nanoscale DNA device.
The robot arm rises up out of a flat DNA platform
on a glass slide.
While the arm is made out of relatively rigid
DNA helices bundled together,
It’s attached by flexible single-stranded DNA pieces
that allow it to rotate.
The technique relies on the negatively charged nature of DNA.
The researchers applied a charge to the system
to move the arm around and tracked its position
using fluorescent signals picked up by microscopy.
The movement happens within milliseconds.
one-millionfold faster than previous examples
in DNA nanotechnology.
In some experiments, the arm’s movement
was stopped short by DNA strands
sticking up perpendicularly from the platform.
The arm could only move if the charge was driving it
to let go of these complementary strands--
and then only to set positions.
This shows that the DNA arm can move like a latch
between predefined configurations,
under remote control.
If combined with cargo transfer techniques
these tiny DNA robot arms could be used
to remotely pick up
and drop off molecular components--
opening the door to true 3D printing of molecules.
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Watch a robot made of DNA swing its arm

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