Nucleic acid-templated functional nanocomposites for biomedical applications

Nucleic acids templating method has gained great attention in material preparation because of the unique programmability and biocompatibility properties of nucleic acid, which facilitate the construction of a wide variety of nanostructures with various complexities. Here we introduce the type of nucleic acid template used for the material preparation and the recent advances made with those material in biomedical fields including bimolecular sensing, nucleic acids /protein/drug delivery, single or multi-mode cell imaging and antibacterial application. We attempt to offer an outlook to the property of nanomaterial that combine with the biological function of nucleic acid template for the biomedical application. Finally, we briefly outline our perspectives and discuss the challenges in the field.