Duration: 60 min
Max. Number of Participants: 20
Summary:
This interactive workshop provides students the opportunity to become familiar with a new elastic model of DNA (EDNA). Visualizing and understanding the structure and dynamics of DNA is a significant challenge in science education, especially when introducing students to concepts that connect biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. To address this challenge, we developed EDNA, an interactive Elastic DNA model designed to support STEM education through hands-on exploration. Unlike traditional rigid DNA models, EDNA is constructed from flexible elastic materials, allowing students to physically manipulate the molecule and directly observe its responses to bending, twisting, wrinkling, and supercoiling. This tactile experience promotes an intuitive understanding of DNA mechanics while emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of molecular science, making EDNA an ideal tool for STEM education and outreach.
In the second part of the workshop, students will learn what a polymer is, what its structure looks like, and what role polymers play in emerging DNA and mRNA technologies. Participants will have the opportunity to assemble a DNA molecule with their own hands, try out the elastic model, prepare their own polymer, and perform a real experiment to prepare and analyze complexes of polymers and DNA known as polyplexes. Participants will have the opportunity to assemble a DNA molecule with their own hands, try out the elastic model, prepare their own polymer, and perform a real experiment to prepare and analyze complexes of polymers and DNA known as polyplexes.