Biomod/2011/MIT/Origami/ScrappedIdeas

HIV Seek and Destroy

HIV is a virus that claims the lives of about 2 million people per year, and it is estimated that an additional 2.5 million new infections occur every year. As such, it is something of great interest to the global human population, and in particular sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately although many novel drugs and experimental treatments have increased the life span of those afflicted with the virus, as of yet there is no known cure or even vaccine.

Our goal here is to attack the virus from a new direction, with the use of DNA nanotechnology. The overarching idea is the use of DNA structures to somehow interfere with the ability of HIV to enter a host cell. This and other ideas will be discussed along with a summary of the life cycle of the virus, as well as current treatments and a review of selected literature as it pertains to our project

HIV Seek and Destroy details

Malaria

Malaria details

Ion Channel Assay

The idea behind this was that the flow of ions created a measurable magnetic field in the vicinity of the ion channel. We would attach a DNA nanostructure loop that the magnetic field could induce a current through by Faraday's law of induction. By lenz's law, any change in the flow of ions would result in a changing ElectromotiveForce(EMF) which would also result in a changing current in the loop of DNA. If we could somehow measure the current or the force that the current from the ions flowing would exert on the loop of DNA, we could estimate how many ions(as well as the direction of the current) are going through the channel at any given time.