Researchers Send DNA on Sequential, and Consequential, Building Mission (IMAGE)
Caption
A team of scientists has developed a method to create structures whose building blocks are a millionth of a meter in size by encoding DNA with assembly instructions. In a series of experiments, the researchers mixed four 'flavors' of droplets (yellow, orange, green, and blue), each coated with different DNA, but which do not bind. They then added a new droplet (red), which specifically binds to the orange droplet and activates it for the next step in the assembly. This process spurs the creation of a droplet chain in a pre-determined order (red-orange-yellow-green-blue).
Credit
Image courtesy of Yin Zhang.
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