Centre for DNA Nanotechnology (CDNA) is a centre of excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (Danmarks Grundforskningsfond).

The center is based at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) at Aarhus University, Denmark, in close collaboration with two research groups at Duke University, USA and Arizona State University, USA.  The purpose of the centre is to conduct basic research within the field of DNA Nanotechnology and we have gathered an interdisciplinary team of around 35 researchers and students from chemistry, physics and molecular biology.

We exploit the self-assembling capability of oligonucleotides to study and control the assembly of materials at the nanoscale.  This research ranges from assembly of nucleotide derivatives on surfaces, DNA-directed chemistry and DNA-based sensors to formation of complex DNA nanostructures and the interactions of such structures with biological systems. Among the key competences present at the center for the formation and characterization of such structures are synthetic organic chemistry, molecular biology, and scanning probe microscopy.

Examples on the contributions from CDNA since its establishment in 2007 are:  self-assembly of DNA bases on surfaces studied by STM (Science 2008), development of the first RNA aptamer-based electrochemical sensor (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008), synthesis and assembly of or molecular rods along the axis of DNA (Angew. Chem. 2008), development of a software package for design of DNA Origami (ACS Nano 2008, the software is freely available at this home page), the folding of a viral DNA sequence into a box with a controllable lid (Nature 2009), and recently we reported on single-molecule chemical reactions on DNA origami (Nature Nanotechnology 2010).

Thank you for visiting our homepage and if you have further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Kurt Gothelf
Director of CDNA 
kvg@chem.au.dk