- Cancer treatment advance: nanorobots to deploy needed drugs
- The resulting nanostructures can be programmed and tailored for specific functions
- Highly technological product for highly customized results
Cancer treatment advance: nanorobots to deploy needed drugs
The University of Sydney Nano Institute announced on Thursday that researchers are developing nanorobots that could deploy targeted cancer drugs.
The university said in a press release that Dr. Minh Tri Luu and Dr. Shelley Wickham use a DNA origami method, which uses DNA's natural folding power to create new and useful biological structures. The research was published on Thursday in the Science Robotics journal.
The researchers have made over 50 nanoscale objects, including a nano-dinosaur, a dancing robot and a mini-Australia that is 150 nanometres wide, or 1,000 times narrower than a human hair.
The resulting nanostructures can be programmed and tailored for specific functions
The scientists focused on creating modular DNA origami units known as voxels that can be reconfigured into complex three-dimensional structures.
"We've created a new class of nanomaterials with adjustable properties, enabling diverse applications - from adaptive materials that change optical properties in response to the environment to autonomous nanorobots designed to seek out and destroy cancer cells," Luu said.
"The results are like using Meccano, the children's engineering toy, or building a chain-like cat's cradle. But instead of macroscale metal or string, we use nanoscale biology to build robots with huge potential," Wickham added.
Highly technological product for highly customized results
When assembling the voxels, the researchers incorporate additional DNA strands onto the exterior of the nanostructures. According to the university, these new strands act as "programmable binding sites."
"These sites act like Velcro with different colors - designed so that only strands with matching 'colors' (in fact, complementary DNA sequences) can connect," Luu said. This allows exact control over how the voxels bind to each other, allowing for highly customized results.
Based on DPA reports
