The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry hosts guest speaker Divita Mathur, Frank Hovorka Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University. Her presentation will be on the topic of "Programmable DNA nanoparticles for gene therapies."
Sponsored by the Luke E. Steiner Lecture Fund
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Abstract:
Synthetic DNA nanotechnology enables building precisely defined nanoscale
architectures with broad applications in biotechnology. Here, we introduce gene-encoded DNA
nanoparticles, in which the long single-stranded scaffold of DNA origami is engineered to
encode protein-coding sequences, enabling structurally defined nanoparticles that function as
gene templates. We demonstrate that these DNA nanoparticles support protein expression in
both cell-free systems and cells. Using prototypical proteins, we establish that complex DNA
architectures remain accessible to transcriptional machinery. Notably, we encode and express
functional base editors from DNA nanoparticles and demonstrate their ability to mediate gene
editing in mammalian cells. These results position gene-encoded DNA nanoparticles as a
programmable platform for gene delivery.
