Molecular Information Store

Scientists have pioneered a process of encapsulated DNA in glass that is equivalent to creating a fossilised form of data storage.

17:27 18 August 2015

Scientists has found a way to store vast quantities of information for up to a million years in a single molecure of DNA, which could lead to digital archives of everything from ancient texts to Wikipedia changes.

 

Robert Grass and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich said that the invention is equivalent to creating a fossilised form of data storage.

 

The researchers said: “We will show how we can use modern chemical and information engineering tools for the safeguarding of actual digital information in the form of DNA.”

 

Dr Grass added: “A little after the discovery of the double helix architecture of DNA, people figured out that the coding language of nature is very similar to the binary language we use in computers.”

 

“On a hard drive, we use zeros and ones to represent data, and in DNA we have four nucleotides, A, C, T and G.”

 

Using a machine, the DNA molecules were synthesized and heated to 71C for a week, which is equivalent to being stored at 50C for 2,000 years.