Special Seminar: “Detecting WIMPs using molecular biology methods” Andrzej Drukier Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) may make up most of the matter in the universe. While there are intriguing results from DAMA/LIBRA, CoGENT and CRESST-II, there is not yet a compelling detection of dark matter. The ability to detect direction of recoiling nuclei will considerably facilitate detection of WIMPs by means of “diurnal modulation effect” (DME). Directional sensitivity requires either extremely large gas (TPC) detectors or detectors with a few nano-meter spatial resolution. I will introduce an idea for a new WIMP detector, where the transducers are nano-meter but very large surface Au foils and direction of recoiling nuclei is measured by “ssDNA Tracker Chamber” consisting of ordered array of ssDNA strings. PCR and ssDNA sequencing are used to read out the detector. By leveraging advances in molecular biology, we aim to achieve higher levels of spatial sensitivity than conventional WIMP detectors at reasonable costs. Based on work in collaboration with K.Freese, C.Cantor, G.Church, T.Sano Hosts: David Spergel, Peter Meyers, Frank Calaprice