Seeman studied biochemistry at the
University of Chicago and crystallography at the
University of Pittsburgh. He was a postdoctoral researcher with
Alexander Rich at
MIT. He became a faculty member at the
State University of New York at Albany, and in 1988 moved to the Department of Chemistry at
New York University. He is most noted for his development of the concept of
DNA nanotechnology beginning in the early 1980s. In fall 1980, while at a campus pub, Seeman was inspired by the
M. C. Escher woodcut
Depth to realize that a three-dimensional lattice could be constructed from DNA. He realized that this could be used to orient target molecules, simplifying their crystallographic study by eliminating the difficult process of obtaining pure crystals. In pursuit of this goal, Seeman's laboratory published the synthesis of the first three-dimensional nanoscale object, a cube made of DNA, in 1991. This work won the 1995
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology. The concept of the dissimilar double
DNA crossover introduced by Seeman, was important stepping stone towards the development of
DNA origami. The goal of demonstrating designed three-dimensional DNA crystals was achieved by Seeman in 2009, nearly thirty years after his original elucidation of the idea. The concepts of DNA nanotechnology later found further applications in
DNA computing,
DNA nanorobotics, and
self-assembly of
nanoelectronics. He was a fellow of the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He was an atheist. Seeman died on November 16, 2021, at the age of 75. == Notable publications ==