DNA is the future of data storage
Some
50 years from now, optical, magnetic and flash drives will become obsolete and
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) will be used for large-scale data storage. In July
2016, a team from Microsoft Research and the University of Washington along
with Twist Bioscience, a San Francisco start-up, reached a milestone by
successfully storing 200 MB of digital data in DNA. The size of this synthesized
DNA containing data was comparable with the tip of a pencil.
DNA
possesses some of the attractive properties important for storing data,
firstly, it is very stable; synthetic DNA can remain intact for thousands of
years. Secondly, DNA is never going to become obsolete as it holds blueprint of
the living system. Thirdly, it has high packing density — 1 kg of DNA is enough
to store all the data available in the world.
DNA
consists of nucleotides, and each nucleotide, in turn, contains a phosphate
group, a sugar group, and a nitrogen base. There are four nitrogen bases,
namely (A)denine, (T)hymine, (G)uanine and (C)ytosine. The sequence of base is
a kind of genetic code that is passed from parents to children.
Oligonucleotides are short DNA molecules, these small bits of nucleic acids can
be synthesized in the laboratory as single strand molecule with any user
specified sequence. This fact is used by engineers and biologist to store
information.
The
concept of storing data is not new to DNA. In fact, much before the advent of
semiconductors, DNA has been carrying genetic data for generations. The only
difference is in the format of data. DNA carries data in form of sequence of
nitrogen base pair, for example, GATCAG, whereas semiconductors carry data in
form of binary digits, for example, 11010.
Let's
understand the mechanism. Suppose we wish to store an image in DNA. The image
is broken down into pixels. The brightness value of each pixel, available in
form of binary number is uniquely mapped to nitrogen base pair sequence, for
example, 11010 is mapped to GATCAG. Once the complete DNA map is ready, DNA can
be artificially synthesized in a laboratory. This process is analogous to
writing data in DVD. Once synthesized, DNA can be stored in test tubes for
hundreds of years. When we wish to retrieve the data we just have to read the
synthesized DNA using a DNA sequencing machine. This process will generate the
exact sequence of base pair, which can be translated back into binary data and,
in turn, the image can be regenerated.
But,
there are few bottlenecks too, semiconductor memories read and write data in
microseconds and they are very economical, on the other hand, encoding and
decoding data in DNA is a complex task, it requires more time and money. In
2013, researchers at European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Hinxton, UK
estimated the cost of encoding and decoding data in DNA as $12,400 per MB and
$220 per MB respectively. Of course, the cost is high when compared with
conventional semiconductor memories, but technology is rapidly advancing and
cost of DNA synthesis is falling.
About
2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every day. While storing data in
digital format is easy, data archival is a complex task requiring continuing
maintenance and regular transferring between storage media. Ideally, DNA
provides an alternative to conventional semiconductor for secure and long-term
data storage.
Source | The Hindu | 5 September 2016
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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