DNA meets synthetic polymers—highly versatile hybrid materials

The combination of synthetic polymers and DNA has provided biologists, chemists and materials scientists with a fascinating new hybrid material. The challenges in preparing these molecular chimeras were overcome by different synthetic strategies that rely on coupling the nucleic acid moiety and the organic polymer in solution or on solid supports. The morphologies and functions of the bioorganic block copolymers can be controlled by the nature of the synthetic polymer segment as well as by the sequence composition and length of the DNA. Recent developments have expanded the scope and applications of these hybrid materials in a number of different areas including biology and medicine, as well as bio- and nanotechnology. Their usage ranges from gene delivery through to DNA detection to programmable nano-containers for DNA-templated organic reactions.