Self-resetting molecular probes for nucleic acids detection enabled by fuel dissipative systems

•Self-resetting probe based on dynamic DNA nanotechnology is used for repeated SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection.•Highly consistent signal across cyclic detections and short cycling time were achieved by utilizing simulation tools.•The featured dissipative kinetics of the probe enables a fingerprint-type FWHM to identify single-nucleotide variants.•This method was deployed for COVID-19 clinical samples and 100% correctly classify patients and controls.