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.
