Double Life of the Double Helix - DNA, More Than a Building Block of Life

The fascinating structure of DNA has enabled the encoding of a life's message and 50 years after the discovery, genome libraries and gene manipulation, we have just about scratched the surface. But today, DNA is not only a molecule of life, but also an important building block in a new field of nanotechnology - design of novel nanostructures. And the structures, which have been designed on the nano scale by making use of remarkable properties of a double helix, are not only fascinatingly complex but have, in  the last decade, found a range of interesting applications and continue to attract lots of attention.  What has been done till now to fill in the gaps in understanding the  DNA and where can we go from here?



Biographie

Ljiljana Fruk studied chemistry at the University of Zagreb, completing her studies with honors in 1999. After she received the Overseas Research Award and University of Strathclyde Scholarship, she continued to pursue her Ph.D. at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland where she worked on the development of advanced spectroscopic tools for DNA detection. In 2004 she was awarded the Humboldt Fellowship followed by the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship to conduct postdoctoral research on DNA bionanotechnology and the design of artificial enzyme catalysts with Prof. Niemeyer at the University of Dortmund. Since 2009 she is a research group leader and lecturer at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, DFG-Centre for Functional Nanostructures, in the field of Nanobiology. Her team works on the development of novel, photosensitive bio-nano hybrid systems to be used in the design of new catalysts or biosensors for nanomedical applications.