DNA Nanoscience ─ From Prebiotic Origins to Emerging Nanotechnology

The book looks at the first 35 years of DNA nanotechnology to better appreciate what lies ahead in this emerging field and looks back approximately 4 billion years to the possible origins of DNA which are shrouded in mystery. It is widely believed that DNA nanotechnology will be one of the dominant scientific themes of the 21st century impacting medicine, energy resources, and electrooptic communications among other areas. The origins question is one of the fundamental unanswered questions in natural philosophy and the implications of the correct answer cannot be foreseen. There is no other detailed book length treatment of DNA nanotechnology and the origins question accessible.

The author has spent over 25 years in academia as sole Principal Investigator of his own laboratory with interests in biomimetic nanophysics and quantum magneto-optics. His biological nanophysics studies have been the subject of commentaries in Nature (Nature 344 (1990), 591), The American Physical Society “Physics News in 1992” (APS News 2, No. 3 (1993), 22-23), Popular Science (Popular Science 241, No. 6 (1992), 16) and elsewhere. This work resulted in the first-ever U.S. patents in nanostructured materials: N.A. Clark, K. Douglas, and K.J. Rothschild, “Self-Assembled Nanometer Lithographic Masks and Templates and Method for Parallel Fabrication of Nanometer Scale Multi-Device Structures,” U.S. Patent #4728591 (1988) and N.A. Clark, K. Douglas, and K.J. Rothschild, “Method for Parallel Fabrication of Nanometer Scale Multi-Device Structures,” U.S. Patent #4802951 (1989). These original patents have been referenced 369 times by other researchers through (and including) 2014.