DNA data storage is close than you think

[Tom62]

"Life's information-storage system is being adapted to handle massive amounts of information," reports Scientific American, calling it "an alternative to hard drives" and noting that DNA "is already routinely sequenced (read), synthesized (written to) and accurately copied with ease.

"DNA is also incredibly stable, as has been demonstrated by the complete genome sequencing of a fossil horse that lived more than 500,000 years ago. And storing it does not require much energy."

But it is the storage capacity that shines. DNA can accurately stow massive amounts of data at a density far exceeding that of electronic devices. The simple bacterium Escherichia coli, for instance, has a storage density of about 10**19 bits per cubic centimetre, according to calculations published in 2016 in Nature Materials by George Church of Harvard University and his colleagues. At that density, all the world's current storage needs for a year could be well met by a cube of DNA measuring about one meter on a side.

The prospect of DNA data storage is not merely theoretical. In 2017, for instance, Church's group at Harvard adopted CRISPR DNA-editing technology to record images of a human hand into the genome of E. coli, which were read out with higher than 90 percent accuracy. And researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research have developed a fully automated system for writing, storing and reading data encoded in DNA. A number of companies, including Microsoft and Twist Bioscience, are working to advance DNA-storage technology... DNA bar coding is now being used to dramatically accelerate the pace of research in fields such as chemical engineering, materials science and nanotechnology.

[Tank]

For long term ROM it's almost a no brainer.

[jumbojak]

I'll have to read the article later, but how quickly can it be read? This would be great for espianage though.

[joeactor]

Been following it for a while. Would be interesting to see a functional production ready system (and the specs).