SYDNEY: DNA's stable and repetitive structure underlies all life. Now two teams of researchers have harnessed DNA's unique properties to build novel three-dimensional (3-D) nanostructures, with potential applications in the electronic devices and medical technologies of the future.

"We are now closer to the dream of learning, as nanoscientists, how to break everything down into fundamental building blocks...and reassembling them into whatever structure we want," said materials scientist, and leader of one of the teams, Chad Mirkin of Northwestern University in Evanston, USA.

Though DNA has been used to build flat nanostructures before, this is the first time it has been achieved in three dimensions. The technique is reported in the British journal Nature.

Self-assembling

Researchers have long been interested in building materials which contain ordered, 3-D arrays of nanoparticles.