In 2013, scientists in the UK published results showing that DNA could be used to archive vast amounts of data. One gram of DNA can hold the equivalent of two petabytes of data it was claimed. In the report published in Nature.com they encoded a clip of Martin Luther King’s classic address from 1963, a JPEG photo, a PDF of the famous Crick and Watson paper describing the structure of DNA, a text file containing all of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a file about the new encoding system itself, in total 738kb of data onto DNA, then sequenced and reconstructed the original files with complete accuracy.
According to the report, the theoretical limits of data storage on DNA go way beyond what is physically possible using today’s methods. A DNA-based storage system requires no maintenance, no electricity and no backward compatibility requirements to retrieve the data. “As long as there is DNA based life on Earth there will always be a means to read it”, said Dr Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute who co-authored the report. To copy data to DNA the team translated the binary into a bespoke code which a synthesis machine then resequenced as DNA.
This was not the first time DNA-based storage has been achieved, but the techniques differ from those used by a US team in Boston who encoded an entire book using their own methods, the results of which are also published in Science Magazine. Where the UK method differed was in how DNA was treated; they created multiple copies of overlapping DNA fragments, with each fragment also carrying some “indexing” information that identify where in the overall sequence it should sit.
Now fast forward just 2 years to today and a Swiss research team has done it again. Dr Robert Grass, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, says they have pioneered a process of encapsulated DNA in glass that is equivalent to creating a fossilised form of digital storage, converting 83 Kb of text from the medieval Swiss Federal Charter of 1291 and the Methods of Archimedes. The researchers working with Glass have also developed a mathematical algorithm normally used in long-distance radio transmissions to eliminate any errors when deciphering the data written in the digital genetic code of DNA.
Whilst the storage possibilities are endless there are some critical downsides.
At the moment, it’s phenomenally expensive, both the report from 2013 and Dr Glass argue that as technology matures, the cost for entry will be lowered but in an enterprise and personal context this is still years out of reach for commercial use. Reading, writing and indexing the data at speed is also still an issue, in all three cases the researchers have encountered problems in reliable methods.
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