A Paul Alivisatos is the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the?University of California, Berkeley.
Chad A. Mirkin is a professor at Northwestern University.
Nadrian C. Seeman is at New York University.
DNA is the molecule that makes up your genome. But it can also be manipulated to create tiny physical structures. That's where nanotechnology comes in. Tiny robots made of DNA can be used to move and control other tiny objects.
Supposedly Seeman was inspired to develop the field in the fall of 1980, while at a pub, inspired by the M. C. Escher woodcut "Depth." He envisioned using DNA to make a lattice-like structure that could support other larger molecules so that scientists could work with them. He didn't achieve that goal until 2009.
Why use DNA instead of another molecule? Strands of DNA fit together in a very specific way, since individual "base pairs" — the A, T, G, and C — can only bind to each other.
When they bind, these strands form strong, rigid structures.
Because we understand how these base pairs fit together, we can design DNA structures that will self-assemble based on these rules.
These DNA objects can even be changed after they are created, turning them into molecular robots.