Spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) comprise a nanoparticle core, and a densely packed and highly oriented nucleic acid shell. They have novel structure-dependent properties that differ from those of linear nucleic acids and that makes them useful in chemistry, biology, the life sciences, medicine, materials science, and engineering. This book is a reprint volume that compiles 101 key papers that have been published by the Mirkin Group at Northwestern University, USA, and their collaborators over the past more than two decades. Volume 1 provides an overview and a historical framework of SNAs and discusses their enabling features, which set them apart from all other forms of matter. Volume 2 covers the general design rules for colloidal crystal engineering with DNA, spanning the building blocks and DNA- and RNA-based "programmable bonds" that can be utilized in preparing such structures. Volume 3 continues the discussion of colloidal crystallization processes and routes to hierarchical assembly, featuring dynamic nanoparticle superlattices and lattices prepared on surfaces or via templating strategies, and explores what one can uniquely learn from and do with colloidal crystals prepared from nucleic acid–functionalized nanomaterials in optics, plasmonics, and catalysis. Volume 4 covers the role of SNAs in biomedicine, especially as diagnostic probes both inside and outside of cells, and treatments based on gene regulation and immunotherapy.
Biography
Chad A. Mirkin is a chemist and nanoscientist known for his invention of SNAs and his contributions to nanolithography, supramolecular chemistry, and nanoparticle synthesis. He has authored over 770 publications and has more than 1200 patent applications (over 350 issued) to his name. He has won more than 230 awards and has founded multiple companies. He was a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Engineering, USA.
"This book comprehensively covers the wide scope of areas in which spherical nucleic acids have an impact, and brilliantly and seamlessly spans areas of fundamental science, materials science, and clinical applications, including both diagnostics and therapeutics. It is truly a tour de force in both breadth and depth, and the richness of the materials science covered in these volumes is staggering. This book is an essential resource for physical scientists, life scientists, and health professionals."
David R. Walt, Harvard Medical School, USA
"This book contains a wealth of information on one of the most prominent nanostructures in the era of modern nanoscience and technology—the spherical nucleic acid. These comprehensive volumes, part historical perspective and part scientific reference, are fully essential for any researcher who wants to understand this fascinating nanoarchitecture and how it is changing the world."
Timothy M. Swager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
"This is an excellent and very thorough book on an extremely novel class of nucleic acids called spherical nucleic acids, which have very interesting and unique properties and uses. The editor, Chad Mirkin, a world-renowned scientist, is the person who pioneered this entire field."
Robert S. Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
