Objectives

In vivo synthesis of functional DNA nanostructure

Our aim is to design a novel DNA nanostructure that can detect multiple miRNA targets simultaneously. We hope that our design can discriminate a single base mutation of the target miRNAs. Hence, it can be highly specific to our targets and avoid false positives. Our goal is clear - we aim to design a tool which can possibly detect a combination of biomarkers and enhance the sensitivity of detecting a particular type of cancer

Recently, in vitro applications of DNA nanostructure have already achieved point-of-care (POC) diagnosis. Therefore, we hope to move from in vitro to in vivo by developing a self-assembled DNA nanostructure that can potentially target miRNAs in vivo. Detecting serum miRNA can be challenging because of the low serum miRNA level, so methods such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction are used to amplify the target miRNAs before detecting them. We hope that our DNA nanostructure, which is synthesized and assembled in vivo, can potentially eliminate the need of target amplification. In addition, our design has an advantage over the current designs of molecular beacon. Molecular beacon makes use of fluorophores and quenchers, which cannot be synthesized in vivo. Our design does not require the use of fluorophore and quencher and thus can work well inside cells. In addition, our DNA nanostructure can be produced at a lower cost as fluorophore and quencher are not used.