In Memoriam

In memoriam: Nadrian Seeman

ASBMB Today Staff
June 20, 2022

Nadrian (Ned) Seeman, a nanotechnologist who built the first self-assembling DNA structures and a member of the ASBMB since 1986, died Nov. 16, 2021, in New York City. He was 75.

Ned Seeman

Born Dec. 16, 1945 in Chicago, Seeman earned an undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in crystallography and biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. He did postdoctoral training at Columbia University and with Alexander Rich at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He worked as a crystallographer in the biology department at the State University of New York at Albany before joining the faculty at New York University where he remained for the rest of his career as a professor of chemistry.

Inspired by the crisscrossed structure of the Holliday junction, which forms during DNA recombination, Seeman began to develop DNA sequences that would self-assemble, based on their sequence, into predictable structures. In 1991 he reported the first DNA cube, and in 2009, a crystalline DNA nanostructure. Although Seeman’s research puzzled his colleagues initially, the approach has matured into a field known as DNA nanotechnology, and DNA structures are used today to construct nanorobots and drug delivery vehicles, and in numerous research contexts.

Among Seeman’s many honors and awards were the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Jagadish Chandra Bose Triennial Gold Medal, the American Chemical Society’s Nichols Medal and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry. He was the founding president of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara Lipski, and longtime coworker Ruojie Sha.

Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?

Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition monthly.

Learn more
ASBMB Today Staff

This article was written by a member or members of the ASBMB Today staff.

Related articles

In memoriam: Maxine Singer
Marissa Locke Rottinghaus
In memoriam: Peter Geiduschek
ASBMB Today Staff
In memoriam: Robert Metrione
ASBMB Today Staff
In memoriam: Jacques Fresco
ASBMB Today Staff
2025 PROLAB awardees announced
Marissa Locke Rottinghaus

Get the latest from ASBMB Today

Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.

Latest in People

People highlights or most popular articles

Hope for a cure hangs on research
Essay

Hope for a cure hangs on research

July 17, 2025

Amid drastic proposed cuts to biomedical research, rare disease families like Hailey Adkisson’s fight for survival and hope. Without funding, science can’t “catch up” to help the patients who need it most.

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease
Feature

Before we’ve lost what we can’t rebuild: Hope for prion disease

July 15, 2025

Sonia Vallabh and Eric Minikel, a husband-and-wife team racing to cure prion disease, helped develop ION717, an antisense oligonucleotide treatment now in clinical trials. Their mission is personal — and just getting started.

ASBMB members recognized as Allen investigators
Member News

ASBMB members recognized as Allen investigators

July 14, 2025

Ileana Cristea, Sarah Cohen, Itay Budin and Christopher Obara are among 14 researchers selected as Allen Distinguished Investigators by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

AI can be an asset, ASBMB educators say
Advice

AI can be an asset, ASBMB educators say

July 9, 2025

Pedagogy experts share how they use artificial intelligence to save time, increase accessibility and prepare students for a changing world.

ASBMB undergraduate education programs foster tomorrow’s scientific minds
Feature

ASBMB undergraduate education programs foster tomorrow’s scientific minds

July 8, 2025

Learn how the society empowers educators and the next generation of scientists through community as well as accreditation and professional development programs that support evidence-based teaching and inclusive pedagogy.

Honors for Gagna and Sundquist
Member News

Honors for Gagna and Sundquist

July 7, 2025

Claude Gagna is being honored for the diagnostic tool he developed that uses AI to streamline diagnostics. Wesley Sundquist is being honored for his role in finding that HIV’s capsid was a target for treatment.