Robots are everywhere. They mow your lawn, vacuum your floor and make your new car, just to mention a few examples. No matter their function, they all consist of sensors and actuators and they are currently transforming the way we work and live.
The DNA-Robotics consortium have aimed to bring robots into the nanometer scale and have taken the first steps towards the use of molecular robots in future medical and technological applications. In DNA-Robotics we have taken advantage of DNA’s sequence programmability to design self-assembling structural and functional modules that have been combined to perform certain functions. In essence, DNA can be designed and used for building into any arbitrary shape and structure at the nanoscale, and the designed structures can in the future be combined and integrated into even more complex systems.
With this in mind, leading European research groups in the field of DNA nanotechnology collaborated to exploit the advantages of DNA programmability and have taken the field to the next level by developing the field of DNA robotics. Each of the research groups had expert knowledge within different topics ranging from physics over chemistry to molecular biology and this combination have created a synergy effect, which have both increased the impact and interdisciplinarity of the project.
To achieve the goal of creating modules for a DNA-based robot, we divided the project into different work packages, as describe below:
- Integrative structural design
- Programming and signal transfer
- Sensing and signalling
- Actuation
- Translocation
In addition to the design of different modules for the above functions, we combined the modules and explored the integrated function in a biological setting.
An integral and very important part of the DNA-Robotics project have been the education of 15 early stage researchers (ESRs). For a period of 36 months, the ESRs have been working at seven different locations with one of the nine principal investigators as their mentor and supervisor. During their employment, the network have ensured that they been offered high-quality training, which have included network training events, secondments within the network, and participation in scientific conferences in addition to the predefined hands-on training project at their home institution.