Scientists create the printing press of writing data to DNA sequences

In the future, electronic data storage systems could consist of complex, dense strands of DNA that has all of the readable data mapped to the genetic code.

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While that sounds like something out of a comic book or a futuristic sci-fi film, it's exactly what researchers are attempting to do, and according to recent reports, the team has created what is the equivalent of the printing press but for writing data to DNA. Typical forms of writing data to DNA sequences consisted of writing a single letter a time, or the equivalent of threading beads on a string one at time. However, the team has created a new technique that dramatically speeds up the process.

Reports indicate the team created 700 DNA bricks, each of these bricks contains 24 bases. These bricks can be arranged in a desired order to "print" the applicable data onto blank DNA template strands. The new process has increased the writing process from one at a time to up to 350 bits simultaneously. Here's how it works. Researchers decided to encode the data using binary, or ones and zeros. Some of the DNA bricks are chemically marked one or zero.

The markers contain the information that needs to be written and read back. The bricks are placed into a solution and onto specific regions along the blank DNA template. Next, an enzyme copies all of the data within the marker onto part of the DNA template, in this case, a pattern of ones and zeros, and then the data is ready for storage. The data can be read by a nanopore sequencing device that is able to scan the DNA sequence and recreate the stored digital files. The team tested and achieved the recreation of digital files selected by study participants with an accuracy of 98.58%.

For those who don't know, DNA data storage seems like the obvious form of futuristic data storage if current estimates are correct. According to reports, 1 cm3 of DNA is capable of holding more than 10 billion gigabytes of storage. Additionally, DNA storage has the benefit of potentially being able to last thousands or even millions of years if the conditions are kept perfect, which would make it the best archival system humanity has ever created - if it was ever made.

It would be a very interesting future if, one day, the SSDs in our desktop PCs and gaming consoles became DNA storage devices that contained an essentially infinite amount of storage but required additional components to maintain a certain environmental temperature in order to stay functional.