DNA origami is the folding of a single, long DNA strand into any desired rigid shape, which is held in place by many short strands. In his original 2006 demonstration, Caltech’s Paul Rothemund used the technique to make smiley faces and other whimsical shapes.1 Since then, researchers have developed more functional structures, such as boxes that can be locked and unlocked with DNA keys2 and nanomachines that pick up nanoparticle cargo in response to chemical cues in the machines’ environment.3 Now, George Church and colleagues at Harvard Medical School have applied DNA origami to create a device that delivers a molecular payload to a specific class of target cells.4
Delivering a drug to cells of a particular type while minimizing its effect on other cells is an important medical goal. In cancer medicine, in particular, there is often little or no middle ground between killing enough...
