Published Wednesday 27 January 2010 | Jens Holbech

Every year since 2007, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has awarded EliteForsk (Elite Research) prizes to outstanding young researchers in the top class internationally. The aim of the EliteForsk prizes is to strengthen and nurture some of Denmark’s most brilliant and talented researchers.

Five researchers have been awarded prizes this year, including Professor Kurt Gothelf. Each EliteForsk prize amounts to DKK 1.2 million (approximately EUR 160,000), DKK 200,000 of which is a personal prize of honour, and the remaining DKK 1 million is a disposable amount that must be used for research activities.

Kurt Gothelf is Professor of Organic Nanochemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University. Since 2007, he has spearheaded the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for DNA Nanotechnology at iNANO. This interdisciplinary centre involves research groups from both Denmark and the USA.
Work at the centre focuses on research into the application of DNA as a programmable molecule for bringing together microscopic building blocks. The aim of this research is to program material to organise itself the same way as it does in nature, partly with the aid of DNA in the cells. In addition to studies of self-assembly mechanisms, Professor Gothelf and his colleagues carry out research into the development of future DNA-based sensors and medicine.

Professor Gothelf was one of the key figures behind the production of a nanoscale box that is the most complex man-made nanostructure ever generated by self-assembly. The building blocks used to make the nanoscale box are DNA molecules. Almost as if by magic, hundreds of DNA molecules assemble themselves into precisely the structure designed by the scientists on a computer. The nano-box even has a lid that only opens if it comes in contact with precisely the substances the scientists want to use to open it. This provides an opportunity to use the nano-box as a diagnostic sensor for revealing the presence of viruses or cancer, for example. In the long term, it will be possible to control the release of medicine into diseased cells.

The invention of a nano-box with great potential for medicine, treatment and computers resulted in an article being published in the journal Nature. The invention was also selected as the research breakthrough of the year in Ingeniøren (the Danish engineering journal) and as Denmark’s scientific invention of the year by readers of Politiken.dk.

Read more about the nanoscale box.

More information

Professor Kurt Vesterager Gothelf
Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University
+45 8942 3907, mobile +45 6020 2725
kvg@chem.au.dk
www.cdna.dk

Media release from the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (in Danish only) vtu.dk/nyheder/pressemeddelelser/2010/eliteforskning-kraever-input-udefra/