Mirkin is considered the discoverer of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs).
He has spent over two decades designing and engineering the architectural features of these materials to define their novel structure-function relationships in the context of materials engineering, extracellular and intracellular molecular diagnostics, gene regulation, and immunomodulation.
SNAs have numerous commercial products in the life sciences, biomedicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology to date, including one of the first FDA-cleaned, menu-driven, point-of-care medical diagnostic systems, platforms capable of analyzing genetic content, enabled by single living cells, and structures extraordinarily useful for treating skin diseases and cancers via gene regulation and immunomodulatory pathways.
Mirkin is equally notable for his invention and development of dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) and related cantilevered, scanning probe-based nanopatterning methods that can be used to fabricate custom substrates decorated with nanoscale features over large areas.