Recently, the 2014 BIOMOD (International Bio-Molecular Design Competition) came to a close at Harvard University. A seven undergraduate team of Tianjin University (TJU) won the Gold Award by virtue of their design of a light-controlled DNA robot. With the utilization of the DNA Origami technique, the team constructed a nanoscale "container" based on the DNA molecule and designed a nanometer metal “lock” for such a container. More skillfully, it is light that acts as a key to open the lock of the container. After the container is unlocked, the medicine in the container may be released at the targeted location, killing the cancerous cells and effectively decreasing the damage to normal cells in proximity.
As a brand-new DNA self-assembly method, the DNA Origami technique, making the base complementary between a long, single-stranded DNA molecule and a series of short DNA fragments has been designed, and then constituting complicated two-or three-dimensional nanostructures, boasts a wide application prospect in the emerging field of nanotechnology. Putting a long, single-stranded M13 bacteriophage DNA as the scaffold strand, the team folded a three-dimensional nanoscale “container” with the shape of the east gate of TJU by conducting a program designed on more than 200 short staple strands of DNA.
"Robots are not all mechanical structures as we imagined, they shall be equipped with the capability to finish tasks independently”, said Liu Yue, a student from the School of Chemical Engineering and Technology of TJU, and also the captain of the team. As a signature of TJU, this nanomolecular robot can be self-controlled and unlocked autonomously by virtue of remote optical sensing. The team, utilizing solar-thermal conversion characteristics, taking a kind of metal nanoparticle as the “lock”, which produces heat with exposure to a remote laser, then causing the double-stranded DNA to become damaged and unlocking the molecule “container”.
It is known that biological therapeutics are still the main instrument for people to fight against disease. The key to improving the curative effect and reducing drug dosages and side effects is the development of technology for the safe and efficient drug-targeted delivery and the control of the duration and dosage of drug release. After pharmaceuticals are delivered to the targeted location, it is usually controlled and released through a chemical method, and it faces the problems of being short of high specificity and controllability. However, it is a great improvement for the recognition of cancer cells and an enhancement for controllability by capitalizing on “light” to conduct the control of duration and dosage of drugs released.
Due to its ingenuity, the design won all around praise from the judges. Thus, TJU bettered 30 prestigious university teams such as Columbia University, the University of Waterloo, the University of Tokyo, Hong Kong Baptist University, and won the Gold Award. “With the support of experimental data, this design shall be favored with wide application prospects in the field of biological medicine”, as told by the team instructor, Qi Hao.
Set up in 2011, the BIOMOD, held by Harvard University, is an international competition on biological macromolecular design, as well as a summit for undergraduates in the fields of molecular biology, worldwide. The designs mainly cover the fields of biomolecule robots, logic gates of biomolecules and calculation, and structural molecular biology. For the purpose of openness and communication, BIOMOD aims at inspiring passions of undergraduates towards scientific research, encouraging their creations and innovation on basis of teamwork, and building a bridge for mutual communication. The student team of TJU is the fist team involved in this competition in China, and the year 2011 saw its debut. Through the involvement of this competition, students have improved their ability in the recognition and innovation of synthetic biology, independent study as well as teamwork, broadened their scientific vision, received a sound knowledge of cutting-age science and technology, and had contact with world famous scientists.
This year, with the guidance of TJU Vice President Yuan Yingjin and the researcher Qi Hao, as well as the support from the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of Systems Bioengineering at Tianjin University and the leading-edge research institute of Tianjin University in Wu Qing District,Tianjin, the students obtained great achievements.
