DNA Data Storage

Photo from: http://www.threeifbyspace.net/2012/08/ultra-high-density-data-storage-its-in-your-dna/

What if we can extend the limits of our storage systems? What if we can store more ideas, more memories and more files in just a small space? Wouldn't that be better?

    Well, this ‘what if’ is no longer an irrational idea; it’s something that is being developed by scientists today. All your pictures, videos, files, documents, tweets, wall posts, every single one of them can be stored in just a small amount of space, and guess what material will be used for it? Your DNA! Yes, the DNA that stores who you are. That may be the next storage device you’ll be using! 

      For the past few years, we have generated a blast in the volume of information we produce daily. Our activities and businesses are performed with the technologies we have. It is an inevitable fact that most of us are slowly transferring our lives online. Social media is one of the greatest factors of digital revolution.In 2012, every day 2.5 quintillion bytes of data (1 followed by 18 zeros) are created (Conner). At the rate we’re generating information, long-term storage systems will have to keep up with our demand of space.

       Biologists today have been performing experiments on how to store digital files into a biological matter – which is our DNA.

      DNA, short for, Deoxyribonucleic acid, is a complex molecule that contains all of the information necessary to build and maintain an organism. “DNA molecules can be very long, sometimes containing more than a hundred subunits called nucleotides and it is in the arrangement of nucleotides that cells store genetic information.” (Drlica 29). The genetic information stored in DNA is the recipe for our individual heredity. They govern the characteristics displayed by every organism (i.e, blood type, eye color). “ In a small amount of DNA, a variety of complex information about our existence is encapsulated and stored.

    Experiments about DNA Data Storage have been done in the recent years. “Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute showed how DNA, that was only the size of dust-like specks, contained (1) All the 154 Sonnets of Shakespeare. (2) A 26-second clip of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech (3) A PDF file of Watson and Crick’s paper on the structure of DNA. (4) A JPEG photo of Goldman and Birney’s Institute, and (5) A code that converted all that into DNA. The team sent vials off to a facility in Germany, where colleagues dissolved the DNA in water, sequenced it, and reconstructed all the files with 100 percent accuracy. . . . It showed the potential of the famous double-helix as a way of storing our growing morass of data” (Yong). “Last 2012, a bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data -- around 700 terabytes-in a single gram of DNA“(Anthony).

           

     Scientists have been eyeing DNA as a potential storage medium because it holds so much information in a compact, durable form. It is able to store more data in a smaller space than hard-disks and flash devices. “A device the size of your thumb could store as much information as the whole internet,” says Harvard University geneticist George Church. (qtd in. Robert) “Our genetic code packs billions of gigabytes into a single gram and with the new discovery, as discussed in the fourth paragraph, one gram of DNA can store 700 terabytes of data. That’s 14,000 50-gigabyte Blu-ray discs. . . in a droplet of DNA that would fit on the tip of your pinky. To store the same kind of data on hard drives, you’d need 233 3TB drives, weighing a total of 151 kilos” (Anthony). This makes DNA data storage the most advanced form of storage device. Imagine being able to store all of our information in such a small amount of space!


    However, at the moment, DNA only becomes cost-effective if the purpose would be storing for the next hundred years. That one-time cost would outweigh all the constant re-writing of data.
 Pollack, Andrew. “DNA Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data.” New York Times. New York Times Company. 30 Nov 2011. Web. 15 Aug 2013.
 Robert, Lee Hotz. “In Depth: Future of Data May Lie in DNA --- Experiment Opens
Possibilities for Eventual Information- Storage Devices With Great Capacity.” The Wall Street Journal Asia and ProQuest. Hong Kong: Dow Jones & Company Inc. (2012): n. pag. Web. 15 Aug 2013.

     Fortunately, “According to Kosuri of Wyss Institute, DNA sequencing is becoming faster and cheaper at a pace far outstripping Moore’s law, which describes the rate at which computing gets faster and cheaper. . . . The cost has plummeted in the last years, as new technologies have been introduced. The cost of sequencing a human genome plunged to $10,500 in 2011 from $8.9 million in July 2007, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute” (qtd in. Pollack).

   DNA data storage is still limited due to the cost of the system. However, as new technologies come in hand, the drop in the cost of commercially feasible DNA data storage increases.

      DNA has its potential as a resolution for our digital storage dilemma. If we continue the trend of the drop in price, it may be possible to have a cost-effective DNA storage system that is practical for daily use. The probability of being able to archive large amounts of data is a new opportunity to explore more fields of understanding. This gives us the capability to preserve current and past data for the next generations. We have this urge to leave something of ourselves behind, we want to store our memories and ideas into concrete objects. Before the digital age came, our way of leaving our footprints were through printed works and artworks.  However, due to the failure of preserving these works and ideas, their memoirs and legacies are stories that will forever be untold, but DNA data storage can reinvent our future. It can transform our limits and capabilities of writing and storing our histories and cultures. The DNA that stores who we are may just be the storage wave of the future! 

Blogpost by : Querubin Anne C. Yap

References:

Anthony, Sebastian. “Harvard Cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terrabytes of data into a 
 single gram.” Extreme Tech. Ziff Davis, Inc., 17 Aug 2012. Web. 19 Aug 2013

Conner, Maria. “Data on Big Data.” Maria Conner. Disqus. 18 Jul 2012. Web. 4 Sept 2013 

Drlica, Karl. Understanding DNA and Gene Cloning: A Guide for the Curious. 2^nd ed. New 

York: John Wiley &  Sons, Inc., 1992. Print.