an artist’s depiction of graphene fragments, flat sheets of carbon attached to zinc atoms,

which may be used in the manufacture of molecular memories.

Institute (EBI), are focusing on DNA. Others, including a research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are examining molecular storage methods.

Both approaches have begun to take shape over the last few years—although the feasibility of DNA storage was first demonstrated in 1988. Over the next decade, new approaches to data storage could transform the way organizations, and society, manage and store huge volumes of data.

For perspective, all the data humans produce in a year could fit into about four grams of DNA. “There is an opportunity to create storage systems that are a million to a billion times more compact than existing technology and provide a level of longevity that is unheard of today,” Church points out.

the Dna of storage

The need for more efficient data storage methods is rooted in today’s radically changing world. According to IBM, humans collectively produce about 2. 5 exabytes of data each day; market research firm IDC says roughly three zettabytes of data exist in the digital world. Remarkably, 90% of the data in the world has been created over the last two years alone, say researchers at IBM. All this data requires increasingly large data centers and storage networks. It also presents challenges as storage devices and media change and data technologies become obsolete and prone to failure.

Researchers hope to significantly alter the equation. Church and fellow researchers, including Sri Kosuri, a senior scientist at the Wyss Institute, and Yuan Gao, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, are forging into new territory with DNA storage research. They used sophisticated sequencing techniques to encode Church’s book in 96-bit blocks, each containing a 19-bit address to assist with the reassembly process.

The data was built from code based
on the four constituents of DNA: ade-
nine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and
thymine (T), and converted to binary
code. The non-living DNA contained
54,898 data blocks—each stored on an
individual strand of protein. The team
then sent the data to Agilent Technol-
ogies, which used a 3D printer to at-
tach the data to the DNA strands and
build a physical storage device. Then
the team accurately decoded the text
and read it back. Remarkably, a bil-
lion copies of the book easily fit into
the moisture on the bottom of a glass
or small tube.