DNA offers a high degree of programmability that enables the synthesis of highly structured 2D and 3D materials on the 10-100 nanometer scale using the technical approach called DNA origami. These materials can also be scaled to fabricate micron- and millimeter-scale hierarchical materials that preserve their nanometer-scale structural features. Either form of DNA-based material can be converted to inorganic materials including silica, or used to spatially organize secondary molecules including chromophores, quantum dots, peptides, and proteins for a diverse array of applications in patterning, photonics, excitonics, and medicine. In the first part of my talk I will present work in our group to enable the facile design and scaleable synthesis of structured 2D and 3D materials using DNA origami. In the second part of my talk I will present applications of these structured nanoscale materials to program multiplexed optical barcodes, quantum logic gates, and vaccines using quantum dots, chromophores, and proteins, respectively, organized spatially on the nanometer-scale.
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