As a fee As the amount of data generated by humanity has increased exponentially with the advent of AI, scientists have become interested in DNA as a way to store digital information. After all, DNA is nature’s way of storing data. It encodes genetic information and determines the blueprint for all life on Earth.
And DNA is at least 1,000 times more compact than a solid-state hard drive. To demonstrate just how compact it is, researchers previously We’ve encoded all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets., Mozart music page 52and Episode of the Netflix show “Biohackers” With a very small amount of DNA.
But this was either a research project or a media stunt. DNA data storage is not yet mainstream, but it may be getting closer. Now you can buy the first commercial book written in DNA. today, Asimov Press It featured a collection of biotechnology essays and science fiction novels encoded in DNA strands. For $60, you can purchase a physical copy of the book and a nucleic acid version (a metal capsule filled with dried DNA).
To encode the book with DNA, Asimov Press worked with the Boston-based Catalog company to create approximately 500,000 unique DNA molecules to encode the book’s 240 pages (representing 481,280 bytes of data).
Traditional DNA data storage works by converting the binary code of 0s and 1s in a digital file into the building blocks of DNA: As, Cs, Gs, and Ts. Custom DNA strands are chemically synthesized letter by letter to match the desired sequence.
Instead, the catalog uses a method called combinatorial assembly, which the company likens to a Gutenberg printing press. Similar to how moving letters are arranged to form words, Catalog created an alphabet of DNA fragments that can be assembled to represent bits. Companies manufacture these pieces of DNA in bulk and then use enzymes to encode the information. David Turek, Catalog’s chief technology officer, said it doesn’t cost thousands of dollars to encode a book with DNA and make 1,000 copies.
“This is a case where you encode something in your DNA once and you can use the tools of molecular biology to make as many copies of it as you want,” he says. “It’s very easy to do this in bulk.”
In 2023, French company Biomemory began offering a $1,000 DNA storage card that could store about 1 kilobyte (KB) of data, equivalent to a short email of the customer’s choice. At the time, CEO Erfane Arwani told WIRED that the product was an experiment to gauge consumer interest in storing DNA data. “We wanted to show that our process was ready to be exposed to the world,” he said.
But because DNA synthesis is still a fairly slow and expensive process, the cards were expensive. Catalog argues that a combinatorial approach is more efficient. Making identical copies of the same book also lowered the price.
After Catalog performed the encoding, the DNA molecules were dried into powder and shipped to France. There, biostorage company Imagene packaged the molecules into stainless steel capsules with an inert interior atmosphere. This means there is no oxygen or moisture inside. In this state, the DNA inside can be preserved for thousands of years.
