Not enough space on your phone? Don't renew your cloud storage subscription yet. Scientists in China have discovered that images, text files and other digital data can be stored on strands of DNA fused to a 330-foot (100-meter) long plastic strip capable of holding the equivalent of 3 billion songs.
That's a far cry from the device Microsoft created in 2016, which managed to cram 200 megabytes of data into a piece of DNA. “much smaller than the tip of a pencil.”
DNA is a long, double-stranded molecule consisting of a unique sequence of four chemical bases—adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T)—that together encode the genetic information of an organism. Likewise, every digital file is ultimately a combination of ones and zeros that a computer can interpret as a PDF, JPEG, or other file type.
If each base represented a specific set of zeros and ones, it would be possible to encode a piece of artificial DNA containing the binary code of digital files. This type of molecule does not originate from a living organism, but is assembled in the laboratory by combining prefabricated nucleotide building blocks in the desired sequence.
This is exactly what the scientists did before printing encoded DNA onto a long piece of tape. The solution containing the strands was passed through the strip so that they were adsorbed onto the surface of the polymer.
“DNA has the potential to become the next generation of information carriers due to its high storage density,” the authors write in the study. “The twisted configuration of the DNA tape effectively maximizes the spatial utilization of the material, providing portability and increasing the number of accessible areas and storage capacity by increasing its length.”
Each section of the tape has a barcode printed on it, indicating which file is stored there. A camera on a device similar to a cassette player then scans the tape as it moves between two rollers, finds the file and immerses the location in a base solution that releases the DNA. The DNA can then be sequenced and this base sequence can be translated into a code file.
Data storage for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
The researchers hope their DNA tape may offer a solution to the problem. digital data disseminationwhich is significantly aggravated by generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They estimate that a piece roughly 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) long could contain up to 362,000 terabytes of data—equivalent to about 60 billion photos. For reference, laptops often come with 0.5 to 2 TB of memory, while smartphones usually have a minimum of 128 or 256 GB.
In addition to high storage capacity, data encapsulated on DNA tape can be stored for a long time, the team said. This is because the DNA strands are stored inside metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)—molecular-scale cages made of zinc ions—which provide a layer of protection.
DNA, as is known, maintain its shape for centuriesThe researchers found that their tape could store data for more than 345 years at room temperature, or about 20,000 years at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). Even if broken, the DNA tape can be secured using clear adhesive tape, the study said.
In addition to identifying and extracting DNA strands corresponding to a particular file, the reader can encapsulate new DNA strands in a MOF and place them on tape. It can also autonomously detect when a DNA strand is in the wrong barcode section and move it to the correct one.
Although DNA data storage has been researched wide over the yearsit is one of the first solutions to demonstrate elegant “file system” behavior, meaning that files can be retrieved, modified, or deleted. It also operates robotically, without requiring a combination of manual and instrumental actions, and can process “warm” (repeatedly used) data as well as “cold” (infrequently used) data.
However, problems remain. Actual DNA synthesis is still expensive, labor-intensive, and requires bulky equipment. Plus, the process of restoring a single file from tape takes about 25 minutes. Thus, in its current state, the DNA cassette player offers no real method of archiving our digital data.
At the same time, scientists hope that their research could lead to the creation of technology that can store huge volumes of both warm and cold data in a compact form, reducing dependence on huge data centers used today.
