Remote electronic control of DNA hybridization through inductive coupling to an attached metal nanocrystal antenna

[Nathan McCorkle]

Very cool stuff, no updates on their website since 2002 though :/
http://www.media.mit.edu/molecular/

Remote electronic control of DNA hybridization through inductive
coupling to an attached metal nanocrystal antenna
Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli, John J. Schwartz, Aaron T. Santos,Shuguang
Zhang & Joseph M. Jacobson

Increasingly detailed structural and dynamic studies are highlighting
the precision with which biomolecules execute often complex tasks at
the molecular scale. The ef®ciency and versatility of these processes
have inspired many attempts to mimic or harness them. To date,
biomolecules have been used to perform computational operations and
actuation, to construct artifcial transcriptional loops that behave
like simple circuit elements and to direct the assembly of
nanocrystals. Further development of these approaches requires new
tools for the physical and chemical manipulation of biological
systems. Biomolecular activity has been triggered optically through
the use of chromophores, but direct electronic control over
biomolecular `machinery' in a speci®c and fully reversible manner has
not yet been achieved. Here we demonstrate remote electronic control
over the hybridization behaviour of DNA molecules, by inductive
coupling of a radio-frequency magnetic ®eld to a metal nanocrystal
covalently linked to DNA. Inductive coupling to the nano-crystal
increases the local temperature of the bound DNA, thereby
inducing denaturation while leaving surrounding molecules relatively
unaffected. Moreover, because dissolved biomolecules dissipate heat in
less than 50 picoseconds, the switching is fully reversible. Inductive
heating of macroscopic samples is widely used, but the present
approach should allow extension of this concept to the control of
hybridization and thus of a broad range of biological functions on the
molecular scale.

http://www.media.mit.edu/molecular/HamadNature.pdf


--
-Nathan

[Cathal Garvey (Phone)]

To what extent can this method differentiate between different molecules, I wonder? As in, could they melt duplex A while leaving B alone, and then vice versa a minute later?

Fascinating method! Can it be easily DIY'd? :)

Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Nathan McCorkle]

Looks like there are some terms like skin-depth I need to look up, but
the DNA to gold nanoparticle coupling looks pretty easy, but it
requires the DNA to be modified with an amine so this is only gonna
work for synthetic oligos/genes.

This paper shares some common language with the somewhat controversial
DNA self-oscillation papers by Luc Montagnier
http://montagnier.org/Electromagnetic-signals-DNA

If we could compare the math in the two papers, and it checks out to
be similar... maybe we can try the same melt-dissociation test that
the gold paper uses, only with the plain DNAs calculated frequency.
Their equipment setups aren't much different either, though they're
using much different frequencies (7hz for Luc Montagnier's vs 1ghz for
MIT's)

> --
> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> diybio+un...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at
> https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
> Learn more at www.diybio.org
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "DIYbio" group.
> To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
>



--
-Nathan

[Nathan McCorkle]

This is similar:
http://diyhpl.us/~nmz787/pdf/Structural_and_kinetic_effects_of_mobile_phone_microwaves_on_acetylcholinesterase_activity.pdf

--
-Nathan