A full DNA computer is a step closer, thanks to a new technology that could store petabytes of data in DNA for thousands or even millions of years. The system can also process data, as demonstrated by solving sudoku puzzles.
You have more data storage capacity in your little finger than the best electronic hard drive. And we mean that literally – every cell in your body can hold about 800 MB of data, and you’re made of trillions of cells so every one of us is a walking, talking, super-dense data center. It’s not surprising then that scientists have been working to tap into that incredibly efficient natural data storage system.
It’s not without its issues though. DNA is rather fragile to work with, it can be hard to reliably write to, read from, move and process information on it. But the new study claims to have developed a new system that can solve those problems. The key is a soft polymer material that acts like a scaffold for the DNA, which can be dehydrated for long term storage and rehydrated for retrieval.
“Specifically, we have created polymer structures that we call dendricolloids – they start at the microscale, but branch off from each other in a hierarchical way to create a network of nanoscale fibers,” said Orlin Velev, co-corresponding author of the study. “This morphology creates a structure with a high surface area, which allows us to deposit DNA among the nanofibrils without sacrificing the data density that makes DNA attractive for data storage in the first place.”
This technique allows data to be stored at incredibly high density – 10 PB per cm3. Put another way, that’s 10 million GB in a space the size of a sugar cube. The dendricolloid can hold onto files better than bare DNA, and can undergo more than 170 dehydration/rehydration cycles compared to 60 cycles with bare DNA.
Like other DNA data techniques, this could be well suited to long term, archival storage. The researchers predict that DNA stored on their polymer nanofibrils would have a half-life of around 6,000 years at a fridge temperature of 4 °C (39 °F), and an incredible 2 million years if frozen at -18 °C (0.4 °F).
To write data to the DNA, algorithms first convert it into sequences of nucleic acids – the familiar ACGT letters of DNA code. Specific pieces of information can be retrieved using RNA molecules that copy the data from the DNA, and then sequencing that RNA. That means you don’t have to destroy the DNA to read back from it, unlike some existing DNA data techniques.
The new system also allows for computations directly in the DNA, using enzymes. This was demonstrated by having the system solve simplified 3 x 3 chess and sudoku problems.
“The ability to distinguish DNA information from the nanofibers it’s stored on allows us to perform many of the same functions you can do with electronic devices,” said Kevin Lin, first author of the study. “We can copy DNA information directly from the material’s surface without harming the DNA. We can also erase targeted pieces of DNA and then rewrite to the same surface, like deleting and rewriting information stored on the hard drive. It essentially allows us to conduct the full range of DNA data storage and computing functions.”
This could pave the way not just for DNA data storage, but full DNA computers.
The research was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Source: North Carolina State University