Digital Data Stored in Living Organisms

DNA, possibly the oldest data storage medium, could now become the latest as scientists reported progress toward using DNA to store text, images, music, and other digital data inside the genomes of living organisms.

In a study scheduled for publication in the April 9, 2007, issue of the American Chemistry Society's (ACS) journal Biotechnology Progress, Dr. Masaru Tomita and colleagues from Keio University (Yamagata, Japan) and Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. (Yamagata, Japan) pointed out that DNA has been gaining attention as perhaps the ultimate in permanent data storage.

Data encoded in an organism's DNA, and inherited by each new generation, could be safely archived for hundreds of thousands of years, the researchers reported. In contrast, CD-ROMs, flash memory, and hard disk drives can easily fall victim to accidents or natural disasters.

In their report, the researchers describe a method for copying and pasting data, encoded as artificial DNA, into the genome of Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium, "thus acquiring versatile data storage and the robustness of data inheritance.” The researchers demonstrated the method by using a strain of B subtilis to store the message: E = MC2 1905!--Albert Einstein's famous 1905 energy-mass equivalence equation.

"We suggest that this simple, flexible, and robust method offers a practical solution to data storage and retrieval challenges in combination with other, previously published techniques,” the report stated.


Related Links:
Keio University
Human Metabolome Technologies