US researchers have demonstrated how a 34-nanometer strand of DNA, just 100 base pairs long, can conduct a small electrical current without damage.

Jacqueline Barton and colleagues at Caltech have used cyclic voltammetry to show how DNA now surpasses all the requirements of nanowires in being easy to synthesize, very flexible, both physically and in possible design, and now in conducting a low current without degradation.

The research is very much in the early stages of development but takes nanotechnology one small step closer to the realization of molecular electronics. Devices built with nanoscale components could theoretically be much more powerful and more compact than circuitry that uses conventional semiconductor electronics.

• DNA charge transport over 34 nm
  J. D. Slinker, N. B. Muren, S. E. Renfrew, J. K. Barton,
  Nat. Chem. 2011.
  DOI: 10.1038/nchem.982