An international team has created a turbine based on DNA origami in a nanopore that converts electrical energy into mechanical work, Nature Nanotechnology reports.

Turbines can be found at the macroscale – windmills – and the nanoscale – ATP synthase – but assembling a turbine at the nanoscale has been a difficult task until now. An international team, including Cees Dekker’s group at TU Delft, has now succeeded in making a turbine out of DNA origami that you can actually power with electrical energy.