Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 12;110(46):18431-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316533110. Epub 2013 Oct 28.
In conventional research, colloidal particles grafted with single-stranded DNA are allowed to self-assemble, and then the resulting crystal structures are determined. Although this Edisonian approach is useful for a posteriori understanding of the factors governing assembly, it does not allow one to a priori design ssDNA-grafted colloids that will assemble into desired structures. Here we address precisely this design issue, and present an experimentally validated evolutionary optimization methodology that is not only able to reproduce the original phase diagram detailing regions of known crystals, but is also able to elucidate several previously unobserved structures. Although experimental validation of these structures requires further work, our early success encourages us to propose that this genetic algorithm-based methodology is a promising and rational materials-design paradigm with broad potential applications.
在传统研究中，允许带有单链 DNA 的胶粒自组装，然后确定所得晶体结构。尽管这种爱迪生式的方法对于事后理解控制组装的因素很有用，但它不允许人们先验设计将组装成所需结构的 ssDNA 接枝胶体。在这里，我们正是解决了这个设计问题，并提出了一种经过实验验证的进化优化方法，该方法不仅能够再现详细描述已知晶体区域的原始相图，还能够阐明几个以前未观察到的结构。虽然这些结构的实验验证还需要进一步的工作，但我们的早期成功鼓励我们提出，这种基于遗传算法的方法是一种有前途的、合理的材料设计范例，具有广泛的潜在应用。
