Prof. Natasha Jonoska, PhD

Bottom-up self-assembly of DNA nanostructures have been proposed for variety of biotech uses ranging from information storage, to targeted drug delivery or scaffolding for new materials. Engineering predefined building blocks at nano level with various chiralities that assemble in large 3D crystallographic structures is an essential step for both 3D algorithmic assemblies as well as for spatial information storage.  We will discuss some recent developments in the field and will focus on spatial systems as models for information processing at molecular level. The rationally-designed 3D DNA motif, the tensegrity triangle, is the first DNA molecule used to provide DNA crystallographic assemblies. The  possibilities of these building blocks give ever-increasing geometric complexities that form vast arrays of three-dimensional structures. We show a model that explains and predicts which tensegrity triangle structures can form and which chiral topology they can form, left- or right-handed. The theoretical model is also experimentally verified through units designed with incremental rotational steps.

Biography:

Nataša Jonoska is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at University of South Florida in Tampa Florida. Her research interests are in theoretical and computational models of molecular self-assembly and molecular biology. She has had extensive research collaborations with experimentalists in molecular biology and structural DNA nano technology. She holds a PhD degree in Mathematical Sciences from the State University of New York in Binghamton NY, USA  and since 2014 she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her work on three-dimensional DNA self-assembly as computing models has been awarded with a Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA Computing and Molecular Programming by the International Society for Nanoscale Science and Computing. Her work has been/is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH), the W.M. Keck Foundation and in 2022 she was elected a Simons Fellow in Mathematics. For ten years she served as a Chair of the annual DNA Computing and Molecular Programming conference and co-chaired the annual Unconventional Computing and Natural Computing conference. She also serves on editorial boards of several journals including Theoretical Computer Science, Natural Computing, International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, and has edited nine books on these topics. In 2021 the Florida section of Mathematical Association of America awarded her with the MAA award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics while the journal Theoretical Computer Science published a special issue marking her 60th birthday. She was elected as a foreign member at Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2022.