The world’s smallest antenna is here! Even more groundbreaking is the fact that the world’s tiniest antenna was made from DNA. PhysOrg reported that the nanoantenna was created by researchers at the Université de Montréal to ‘monitor protein motions’. Think of the DNA-based antenna as a way to watch protein structure change over time. Researchers believe this will help them gain a better understanding of the applications of nanotechnology in science.
DNA-based antennas:
About 40 years ago, the first DNA synthesizer was created to help create molecules that converted genetic information into code. Now, scientists are trying to use DNA to build nanostructures and nanomachines. ‘These results are so promising that we are currently working on establishing a start-up company to commercialize and make this nanoantenna available to most researchers and the pharmaceutical industry,’ senior author Alexis Vallée-Bélisle said. DNA is a molecule that is about 20,000 times smaller than a human hair. Vallée-Bélisle said that they had ‘created a DNA-based fluorescent nanoantenna, that can help characterize the function of proteins’.
Using the example of a two-way radio that can send and receive radio waves, the researcher explained how fluorescent nanoantennas receive light in one color or wavelength, and then transmit light back in another color through proteins that it senses. This technology could be useful for biochemistry and nanotechnology. Scott Harroun, a University of Minnesota doctoral student and the study’s first author, says the work helped scientists better understand the role of an enzyme (alkaline phosphatase) in interactions with biological molecules.
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