DNA as hard drive? A new method of recording has been developed

Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is like a natural hard drive. It is capable of storing, replicating and transmitting huge amounts of information. These properties were exploited by researchers at Columbia University and the New York Genome Center, któers have developed a special system for recording information in DNA.

– DNA is believed to be the highest density storage medium we know of – said Yaniv Erlich, coórouter of research. – On top of that, DNA does not degrade over time, such as CDs – added the scientist.

Scientists tested their method and successfully recorded on DNA m.in. computer operating system, a computer virus, and an old Lumiere brothers film. The files were compressed into one. The recorded information then read. The film was played and the operating system was launched. The recovered data did not contain any errorsów.

Researchers have developed a recording system, który uses the four nitrogenous bases contained in DNA. The data was recorded as zeros and ones. The digital information created in this way was sent to Twist Bioscience, whichóra based on it created deoxyribonucleic acid, containing the desired information. Transforming digital information into biological information took two weeks.

Researchers believe that just one gram of DNA can store a zettabyte of data (1,000,000,000,000,000 gigabytesów). On top of that, as Yaniv Erlich cited, Deoxyribonucleic acid is an extremely robust carrier for. From DNA we can read information about organisms from thousands of years ago.

The method of writing and reading information from DNA is very expensive. The archiving itself dwóch megabyteów is a cost of about seven thousand dollarsów. To read the data you need to add another two thousand. But with the development of technology, these prices may fall. It turns out that DNA may be the future of information storage.