Let a Thousand DNA Flowers Bloom – Healthcare Blog
By matthew holt | Published: 2025-10-24 04:24:00 | Source: The Health Care Blog
Written by Kim Billard
When I saw a headline about “DNA flowers,” I was flabbergasted. I mean: Aren’t all flowers made up of DNA, like all living things on our planet? Well, it turns out that DNA flowers are actually soft robots – make those nanobots – so my interest was definitely piqued.
DNA flowers out Freeman Laboratory At the University of North Carolina, led by Dr. Ronette Freeman, her research has just been published in Nature nanotechnology With a less exciting title.Reversible transformation of hierarchical DNA organic crystalIf I had seen this before DNA Flowers I probably would have skipped it, so I’m glad someone has an interest in the marketing.
Designer Daniel Boreham famously said, “Never make small plans,” and I kind of think he would love Dr. Freeman. Her CV indicates that she has formal training in computer science, chemistry, nanotechnology, and regenerative medicine (plus ballroom dancing, if you’re counting), and she probably needs all that training, because her primary interest is in “supramolecular self-assembly, an area where common biological materials like DNA and proteins are viewed not just as information carriers, but also as tunable structural materials for next-generation sensors, nanorobots, pharmaceutical innovations, and clinical tools.”
So what the lab has now done is combined DNA with inorganic materials to allow them to respond to their environment. Professor Freeman He says: “We take inspiration from nature’s designs, such as blooming flowers or growing tissues, and translate them into technology that can one day think, move and adapt on its own.”
In fact, the Freeman Lab prides itself on using “biologically inspired technologies,” the purpose of which is: “We engineer living and synthetic materials to accelerate health outcomes for global communities.” The site talks about “building block designs.” Which is characterized by hierarchical self-assembly, temporal structural reconfiguration, and adaptive behavior.
Hence DNA flowers.
The flowers are actually flower-shaped, although they are microscopic, and what makes them interesting and perhaps useful is that the different strands of DNA allow them to move, open or close, or trigger chemical reactions, based on environmental cues such as temperature, acidity, or chemical signals. DNA sequences direct nanoparticles to organize into complex structures, which can reverse their shape at will.
Professor Freeman said: “People want smart capsules that automatically activate the drug when it detects disease and turns off when cured. In principle, this could be possible with our shape-changing materials.” “In the future, shape-shifting flowers that can be ingested or implanted could be designed to deliver a targeted dose of drugs, perform a biopsy, or remove a blood clot.”
Yes, I love it, and I bet you will too.
The team admits that this technology is in its early stages, but they anticipate a future where, for example, a DNA flower is injected into a cancer patient, where it travels to the tumor, whose acidity causes the petals to release the drug or even take a small tissue sample. When the tumor disappears, the DNA flower will be deactivated until/unless new environmental stimuli reactivate it.
Thinking beyond healthcare, the team sees their creation as helping to clean up environmental pollution, or as a remarkable digital storage device – up to 2 trillion gigabytes in just a teaspoon.
The fact that DNA flowers can sense and respond to their environment makes the team believe that this is a big step forward in bridging the gap between living systems and machines. We’ll see more of that in the rest of the 21ststreet century.
The Freeman lab has some big ambitions. It wants to discover “new and innovative ways to detect viruses, treat diseases, effectively target and deliver payloads, and interact with natural biology.” There are four main ways to attack this target:
sensor: “Developing rapid testing technologies that are easy to use, site-independent, robust in design, and cost-effective to produce.” : “By recognizing, respecting, and studying natural mechanisms, we are able to mimic them in order to develop effective biotherapeutics and advance biomedical engineering.”
Imitation of nature: “By recognizing, respecting and studying natural mechanisms, we are able to mimic them in order to develop effective biotherapeutics and advance biomedical engineering.”
Treatments: “This could include administering an external drug, developing a safe and effective way to deliver that drug to the desired location, or developing a way to program natural biology to reverse the effects of a disease.”
Soft material: “Soft matter is an umbrella term for the sciences concerned with topics ranging from textile materials to fluid mechanics, granular distribution, biological materials, and much more.”
Everything is very cool, they are all thinking about a different future than the past, so kudos to them. DNA flowers are not the first thing Freeman’s lab has done, and I’m sure they won’t be the last. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
And even though Bill Belichick went to UNC for the football game…
Kim is a former e-marketing executive at Grand Plan Blues, and editor of The Late and Lamented magazine tincture.ioand now a regular contributor to THCB
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