The 2013 Foresight Technical Conference: Illuminating Atomic Precision will be held January 11-13, 2013 in Palo Alto, CA USA.
Nanoparticles made from specific DNA and RNA strands, homogeneous in size, composition, and surface chemistry, proved superior to other nanoparticles in silencing gene expression in tumors in mouse experiments.
A forest of long DNA strands hanging at known positions from a thin gold foil may provide a method to detect hypothetical particles of dark matter, thought to compose 26% of the universe.
A theoretical study shows that although thermal noise cannot be used to produce useful motion by mesoscale or macroscale machines, it can be used by nanoscale machines without violating the second law of thermodynamics.
Interlocking organic molecules held between copper atoms have been assembled in a void inside a solid state material to create a very simple molecular machine, a wheel that spins around an axle.
The demonstration that the process of DNA replication is more flexible than thought should make it easier to incorporate unusual amino acids into designed proteins, which might make it easier to design novel protein machines.
A new nanomaterial provides a three million-fold improvement in the sensitivity of common medical tests, potentially permitting earlier detection of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Current methods can image individual atoms in complex structures if the structures are crystalline, comprising many identical structures in a regular array. A new method resolves individual atoms in nanoparticles comprising several irregularly arranged crystalline grains.
Tryptophan residues introduced at various positions in a protein chain identify folding intermediates that are too short-lived to be structurally characterized otherwise.
A variety of protein cage structures have been constructed by designing specific protein domains to self-assemble as atomically precise protein building blocks in defined geometries.
