Presenter
Erik Benson, researcher at Oxford University
Working on building small structures and machines from DNA.
Summary:
Erik Benson, researcher at Oxford University, presented a brief overview of DNA origami mechanisms. His primary project is the construction of a simple 2D printer built out of DNA origami. Three structures – rails, a print head, and a print sheet were built. He was able to get movement and writing of the print head to work, and produced patterning which was visualized by fluorescence. The structure itself was quite soft, so the next steps are to use software simulation to come up with improved designs to increase rigidity.