Ljiljana Fruk: Double Life of the Double Helix

The fascinating structure of DNA has enabled the encoding of a life's message and 50 years after the discovery, genome libraries and gene manipulation, we have just about scratched the surface. But today, DNA is not only a molecule of life, but also an important building block in a new field of nanotechnology - design of novel nanostructures. And the structures, which have been designed on the nano scale by making use of remarkable properties of a double helix, are not only fascinatingly complex but have, in the last decade, found a range of interesting applications and continue to attract lots of attention. What has been done till now to fill in the gaps in understanding the DNA and where can we go from here?