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DNA COMPUTING

Navigating through a maze

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 198–199 (2019)Cite this article

A DNA nanodevice performs pathfinding search and computes the solution of two-dimensional DNA origami puzzles.

The low cost and programmability of synthetic DNA have been used in DNA nanotechnology and synthetic biology to create molecular circuits that process signals and make decisions on specific molecular inputs1. Now, writing in Nature Materials, Friedrich Simmel, Chunhai Fan and colleagues2 describe a DNA computer that uses DNA molecules to explore all possible paths of a two-dimensional (2D) DNA origami maze to compute its solution. This system constitutes an important platform for the implementation of fast and robust molecular computation and the visualization of the progress of computation with single-molecule resolution.

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Fig. 1: A DNA origami maze solved by DNA computation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Georg Seelig

  2. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Georg Seelig

  3. Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Georg Seelig

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  1. Georg Seelig
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Correspondence to Georg Seelig.

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Seelig, G. Navigating through a maze. Nature Mater 18, 198–199 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0279-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0279-y

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