Caltech scientists create DNA tubes with programmable sizes for nanoscale man...(hical abstraction system developed earli...)

Just as a variety of wood sizes are used in construction projects--two by four inches for framing walls, two by eight inches for roof rafters, or four by four inches for fence posts--having nanotubes of various, precisely controlled sizes provides their user with more options. In addition, nanotubes of different sizes have varying mechanical properties; for example, tubes with a smaller diameter are more flexible and tubes with a larger diameter are more rigid. The nanotubes might eventually serve as templates for manufacturing nanowires with controlled diameters; the diameters of electron-conducting nanowires would help determine the electronic properties of the devices they are used to construct.

"The simplicity of the single-stranded tile approach promises to enable us to design ever more complex self-assembling molecular systems. The work is simultaneously elegant and useful," says Erik Winfree, associate professor of computer science, computation and neural systems, and bioengineering at Caltech. Winfree's laboratory was the primary host of Yin's research at Caltech.

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