Nadrian Seeman

NADRIAN SEEMAN OBITUARY
1945 - 2021
"I've always regarded the DNA sequence as a very long four letter word. It's a one-dimensional object and I'm not a one-dimensional guy." – Ned Seeman

Nadrian C. "Ned" Seeman, the father of the field of DNA Nanotechnology, who programed the DNA alphabet to self-assemble into 3D objects, died on November 16 in Manhattan. He was 75.

Seeman, the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor of Chemistry at New York University, is most noted for his pioneering work in DNA nanotechnology, having invented the field more than 40 years ago. It is now pursued by 300-plus laboratories across the globe.

His creations allowed him to arrange tiny pieces to form specific molecules with precision, similar to the way a robotic automobile factory is instructed on what kind of car to make. Seeman's work led the Christian Science Monitor to conclude that "nanotechnology may have found its Henry Ford."

Inspired by Escher's woodcut, "Depth," Seeman programmed the branched DNA he invented to self-assemble into the first DNA cube in 1991. Seeman also realized that the helical nature of DNA was an ideal component to engineer chainlike constructs, leading to the creation of the world's first synthetic topological nanoscale object. His crowning achievement was the creation in 2009 of self-assembled 3D crystalline DNA nanostructures, a major scientific advance bridging the molecular world and the macroscopic world in which we live. In recent work, Seeman used these tools to assemble novel synthetic nanoelectronic components.

As an experimental leader in the DNA-based computation community, Seeman was the founding president of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation, and Engineering.

Seeman received numerous accolades for his groundbreaking vision, including the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience; the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology; the Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Seeman was born in Chicago on December 16, 1945. He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Chicago in 1966 and a PhD in crystallography/biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. He completed his postdoctoral training at Columbia University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working in Alex Rich's lab. After starting his professional career at SUNY Albany as a crystallographer, Seeman joined the NYU faculty in 1988.

He is survived by his wife Barbara Lipski - whom he met at their 50th high school reunion - and his many scientific children around the world.

Published by New York Times from Dec. 15 to Dec. 16, 2021.