Nanowerk  August 14, 2023 Many scientists believe that the key to designing and programming more complex and useful artificial nanosystems relies on our ability to understand and better employ molecular languages developed by living organisms, namely allostery (molecule binds and modifies the structure of another molecule) and multivalency, (facilitates (or not) the binding of a third molecule by simply increasing its binding interface). As a proof-of-concept researchers in Canada engineered a highly programmable DNA-based switch that could be triggered by either a multivalent or an allosteric DNA activator. By precisely designing the binding interface of the multivalent activator, they showed […]