Overview

Dr. Kyle Gibson’s research group explores the assembly of nanoscale materials using DNA, repurposed from its biological use as the blueprint of life to a material use where it can be programmed to have highly specific and orthogonal interactions (Laramy et al., 2019). Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are functionalized with thiolated DNA where they can be slow-cooled to allow for the thermodynamically-favored crystalline product to form (Mirkin et al., 1996; Park et al., 2008). These materials, coined as programmable atom equivalents or PAEs, have been the focus of many studies for their ability to form a diverse number of lattice symmetries and the properties that the collective assemblies display (Laramy et al., 2019; Mirkin & Petrosko, 2023).

One limitation in the study of these assemblies is the difficulty associated in the nucleation and growth stages of the crystalline products. The temperature-controlled crystallization is often carried out in a qPCR thermocycler or Peltier heating block and cooled at a slow rate of 0.1 ºC/10 min (O’Brien et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2023). Given the sensitivity of the crystallization process to temperature, the samples cannot be disturbed or removed from the heating/cooling element without disrupting the slow cool in an irreproducible manner, making the characterization of the solution either difficult or impossible. A main goal of the Gibson lab is to reimagine the traditional crystallization set-ups. This would allow for non-disruptive in situ characterization, using UV-Vis absorbance and DLS for example, and could also enable the ability to add or remove material from the crystallizing mixture, possibly including solvent, salts (critical to electrostatic stabilization of the DNA), more PAE feedstock, different identity (shape, size, etc.) PAE, or seed crystals. The goal of this study is to increase the possible crystal outcomes of PAE-based assemblies, including lattice symmetry, crystal size, and crystal habit, as well as the sole reliance on SEM and SAXS as the main characterization techniques, which can be expensive and difficult to access.

RESS Participant Experiences

The focus of the work in the Gibson lab can be best described as nanotechnology, a highly interdisciplinary field within chemistry that involves aspects of organic, inorganic, biochemistry, and analytical chemistry. The RESS students in the Gibson group will experience each of these subdisciplines of chemistry while performing the research. The students will have hands-on engagement with every step of the scientific process with this research project, beginning with formulating the hypotheses and designing the DNA sequences involved the project, carrying out all the synthetic steps, performing the characterization techniques, including the creation of new protocols for collecting and analyzing data with new crystallization set-ups, analyzing data, and the dissemination of results and ideas to the greater community. This project does not require that students have any particular level of chemistry or research experience beyond a college-level introductory chemistry course, but instead offers participants to use any pre-existing knowledge to enhance their experience and learning within this field while also gaining valuable lab skills, analytical techniques, and problem-solving skills.

Select Previous Publications

"Programming Nucleation and Growth in Colloidal Crystals Using DNA," KM Landy*, KJ Gibson*, RR Chan, J Pietryga, CA Mirkin, ACS Nano, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.2c11674 

"Regioselective Surface Encoding of Nanoparticles for Programmable Self-Assembly," G Chen*, KJ Gibson*, D Liu, HC Rees, JH Lee, W Xia, R Lin, HL Xin, O Gang, Y Weizmann, Nature Materials, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0231-1 

"Bipyramid-templated Synthesis of Monodisperse Anisotropic Gold Nanocrystals," JH Lee*, KJ Gibson*, G Chen, Y Weizmann, Nature Communications, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8571