English

scadnano: A browser-based, scriptable tool for designing DNA nanostructures

Emerging Technologies 2020-07-20 v3 Biomolecules

Abstract

We introduce scadnano\textit{scadnano} (https://scadnano.org) (short for "scriptable cadnano"), a computational tool for designing synthetic DNA structures. Its design is based heavily on cadnano, the most widely-used software for designing DNA origami, with three main differences: 1. scadnano runs entirely in the browser, with no software installation\textit{no software installation} required. 2. scadnano designs, while they can be edited manually, can also be created and edited by a well-documented Python scripting library\textit{well-documented Python scripting library}, to help automate tedious tasks. 3. The scadnano file format is easily human-readable\textit{easily human-readable}. This goal is closely aligned with the scripting library, intended to be helpful when debugging scripts or interfacing with other software. The format is also somewhat more expressive than that of cadnano, able to describe a broader range of DNA structures than just DNA origami.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.11841,
  title  = {scadnano: A browser-based, scriptable tool for designing DNA nanostructures},
  author = {David Doty and Benjamin L Lee and Tristan Stérin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.11841},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

accepted to DNA 2020 (26th International Meeting on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming)

R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:46:36.248Z