Research Areas - (3) DNA Nanotechnology Optical Single-Molecule Biosensing

Full path: Biology > Biophysics > Quantum Biology / Biosensing > Super-resolution Microscopy > DNA Nanotechnology Optical Single-Molecule Biosensing

Mark Bathe 🔗
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): Biological Engineering | Bathe Lab (Laboratory for Nucleic Acid Nanotechnology) @ MIT
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PREFERRED. Bathe's lab programs DNA and RNA into custom 2D/3D nanoscale materials (DNA origami via the DAEDALUS algorithm) for applications spanning vaccines/therapeutics, massive molecular data storage, and — most relevant here — using DNA as a programmable scaffold to organize photonic and quantum-optical elements (mimicking quantum coherence effects seen in photosynthetic light-harvesting) and single-molecule optical biosensing.

Jonathan Breeze 🔗
University College London 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): Physics & Astronomy – Condensed Matter & Materials Physics | Breeze Lab (Solid-State Maser Quantum Sensing) @ UCL
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Breeze is a senior research fellow at UCL working on room-temperature solid-state masers. Research directions: (1) Pentacene maser — first demonstration of a room-temperature, continuous-wave solid-state maser (Science 2018) using photoexcited triplet-state pentacene in p-terphenyl crystal; achieving amplification with noise temperature near 1 K; (2) Diamond NV maser — developing NV-center-based maser for ultra-low-noise microwave amplification at room temperature, relevant to quantum sensing readout chains; (3) Maser applications — quantum-limited amplification for dark matter searches, MRI signal amplification, and quantum communication repeaters; (4) Spin dynamics — understanding triplet-state dynamics in organic crystals for spin polarization control. Strong relevance to quantum-limited microwave sensing.

Shelley Wickham 🔗
University of Sydney 🔗
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Department(s)/lab(s): School of Physics / School of Chemistry | Wickham DNA Nanotechnology Group @ USyd
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Wickham builds DNA origami nanostructures — programmable, self-assembling scaffolds with nanometre-precision addressability — and uses them as molecular machines, drug-delivery vehicles and, most relevantly, as rulers and probes for single-molecule measurement. DNA origami is the standard platform for DNA-PAINT super-resolution and for positioning fluorophores, nanoparticles or spin labels at defined separations, and her group works on dynamic, reconfigurable devices that respond to biological triggers. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — DNA origami is the leading candidate technology for positioning target molecules at a controlled standoff from a near-surface NV ensemble, which is the central geometric problem in pushing NV nanoscale NMR and DEER from pT/sqrt(Hz) ensembles down to single-molecule sensitivity. Genuinely complementary skill set for a quantum-sensing candidate.