Last week, Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) welcomed Purdue University?Chengde Mao?to campus. He had been invited to give the 164th lecture in the?Biomedical Engineering Distinguished?Lecture Series, in which he gave a fascinating lecture entitled, “Programmed DNA Self-Assembly.” Professor Jiang Xingyu, Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering hosted the lecture.

Prof. Chengde Mao(Fourth from the left)

In this lecture, Prof. Mao introduced molecular self-assembly promises an effective approach for nanoconstructions. DNA, in particular, has been used as a programmable 'smart' building block for the assembly of a wide range of nanostructures. Prof. Mao discussed the recent development in programmed DNA self-assembly in?his research group, including: DNA polyhedra, DNA 2D arrays and 3D crystals, and?his exploration in RNA nanostructures.