This document introduces the concept of self-assembly as a bottom-up fabrication process by which living things assemble themselves from smaller components, unlike top-down fabrication where a constructor shapes a final product that is smaller than the starting material. It provides the example of cells assembling into a human to illustrate self-assembly, and suggests molecular self-assembly can be analogous to LEGO bricks spontaneously forming elaborate structures on their own.

1. DNA as molecular lego brick
part 2: introduction to self-assembly

2. me my lab my university
hariadi@dna.caltech.edu
lab website
the best way to reach me

3. do not print!
viewed on screen
this modified presentation is designed to be
printing this document will waste a lot of ink

4. for a long time, we have been mostly rely on
TOP-DOWN fabrication to build our daily objects
example 1: balinese wood carving

5. in TOP-DOWN assembly:
the final product is smaller than the starting material
and there must be a constructor, such as the balinese sculptor
in the example shown above