Biological Nanowires: Self-Assembly of Complex Nanoelectronic Components from Biologically-Derived Precursors

The overall goal of the BioWires project is to utilize metal base pairing in DNA to self-assemble one-dimensional (1D) conductors consisting of single metal ions inside precisely-defined nonlinear nanostructures for the development of biologically-derived nanoelectronics. Modern nanoelectronics involve photon lithography and nanofabrication processes that are prohibitively wasteful and massive in a mission context. By contrast, DNA self-assembly allows for nanometer resolution and liberation from top-down lithographic patterning to a procedure that in principle should allow cheap production off planet. Through an NSTRF grant, this work will shown that the variant of DNA chemistry involving silver(I)-mediated base pairing is highly conductive, and have subsequently assembled periodic 2D arrays of biological nanowires in the absence of a clean-room. In doing so, a chain of single metal ions inside the double helix at prescribed locations will be constructed to build 1D conductors in a network context. These efforts place us significantly ahead of the state-of-the-art in terms of resolution, conductance, and scalability. Many groups have considered the use of DNA as a scaffold for other conductive materials, but this work is at the forefront of intrinsically-functional molecular electronics based in DNA architectures. This work is foundational, but is currently limited to two-dimensional arrays—more information about silver(I)-DNA rotation and adjacency effects is required in order to develop this technology into mature circuit architectures. This work centers on a 3D approach allows new analytical pathways: 1) 3D DNA arrays are inherently crystalline in nature, and X-ray diffraction can be directly performed to obtain atomically-resolved images of these periodic lattices; 2) using crystallographic information of our altered DNA structures, in-house machine learning algorithms can be tailor to self-assemble non-periodic DNA crystals with nanoelectronic functionality.

Biowires offer synthetic-biology-based ISRU for self-assembling nanoelectronics with atomic resolution. Current SOA in silicon devices produces 2D arrays with 6 nm features 35 nm apart. We will build 3D structures with 2.3 nm features spaced 7 nm apart on all three axes. This approach is enabled by the use of 1D conductors inside DNA. Modern 1D wires (nanotubes, ribbons) suffer from assembly and placement. Our structures are self-assembling.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.