I'm Dr. Katherine Dunn. I'm a lecturer in the
School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. The overall goal of my research program
is to reengineer biological molecules and systems to use them in technologies that
solve real world problems such as those in the areas of medicine and energy. Biology, in many ways, processes a lot of
information. Some people refer to life as a form of an information processing system, and we
can take inspiration from that to design new ways of processing information for synthetic purposes
– so essentially doing with biological molecules or living cells what we might try and do with
transistors and circuit boards. Essentially, we can reengineer biological
molecules or even living cells to process information according to certain
rules and produce an output in a useful form. [00:01:10] Whatever problems we are trying to
solve it's quite likely that somewhere nature has tried to solve a problem that's very similar.
So whether that's plants absorbing energy from sunlight to make their own food or animals
managing to swim or fly or walk in an optimal manner, there is some form
of inspiration there for us to drawn on.
Biology is extremely efficient because
it's had millions of years to get things right. So rather than us spending lots of time to try and
work on multiple solutions, it makes sense for us to borrow from nature, to take inspiration
from nature and essentially learn from the best. Most people think about DNA as an information
storage molecule in living things.
The recipe book of life if you will. However, it's
actually possible to take DNA completely out of its biological context and use it
as a nanoscale engineering material. When we do that, we can design pieces of DNA
that will assemble themselves spontaneously into physical structures on the nanoscale that
can do, in principle, whatever we design them to do – within certain limits, of course. In the
context of drug delivery, that could mean that we make a hollow structure out of DNA, put a drug
inside it, and design triggers that will open the structure and deliver the drug only in the
presence of cells that actually need the drug.
Bioinspired technologies could help us to solve
many of the most pressing problems of the 21st century, help us to live longer, perhaps to live
in a manner that is less damaging to our planet, perhaps even to fix some of the damage that's
already been caused to the planet. If we look to nature, we can learn so much about how
to do things better and more efficiently. I think we'd be foolish not to take
advantage of that as a source of inspiration..
