Feature

DNA on the move

Nanobot ‘spiders’ learn how to walk

By Gwyneth Dickey

- More than 2 years ago

Deep inside a beaker in a humming chemistry lab in New York City, a spindly spider crawls over a jumble of origami. It’s not the colored-paper kind of origami, but rather is made of precisely designed segments of DNA. For that matter, so is the spider.

GOING FOR THE GOLD Researchers have created a DNA spider that can do a simple task —  pick up and carry a gold nanoparticle.