CONTENTS Introduction

What is DNA?

Why we are preferring DNA as an information storage device?

How information is stored in DNA?

Coding Table

Advantages and Disadvantages

Future Scope

Conclusion

Introduction

Since time immemorial mankind has wanted to share information for later use.

Starting from the caveman paintings and symbols, we have entered into the computer age and digitization.

At present we have so many storage devices like hard discs,magnetic tapes,pen drives etc.

But even so ,the amount of information to be stored is growing exponentially.

“ That means cost is increasing but our budgets are not “

DNA

So it’s the time to use innovative substitute i.e., long lived ,stable and easily synthesized . That is nothing but

What is DNA?

• Deoxyribo nucleic acid

•  It is a molecule that encodes the genetic instructions.

• Most DNA molecules are double-stranded helices.

• Each molecule consists of two long biopolymers made of simpler units called    nucleotides—each  nucleotide is composed of a nucleobase  recorded using the letters  G, A, T, and C.

• DNA is well-suited for biological information storage.

 

Structure of DNA

Why we are preferring DNA as an information storage device?

• Companies, governments and universities face an enormous challenge Storing the ever-growing flood of digitized information.

• Some experts have looked for answers in biology. In recent years, they have found ways to encode trademarks in cells and poetry in bacteria.

• But these biological things eventually die. By contrast, DNA is stable, durable and dense.

• DNA could hold vastly more information than the same surface volume of a disk drive.

How information is stored in DNA?

. Coding System

Encoding Table

Quaternary number system

DNA sequence

Compression

Example for coding of information

First we should use numbers to represent the letters in ASCII code

From ASCII table

V=86 V=86 I=73 T=84

Use “A ,T, C & G” to represent the numbers

0 = A 1 = T 2 = C 3 = G

VVIT 1112111210211110 TTTCTTTCTACTTTTA

Change to quaternary numbers

• 86= 1112• 86= 1112• 73 = 1021• 84 = 1110

This A ,G, C, T sequence avoids any reading errors, particularly when encountering repetitive base sequences. Also, rather than synthesize one long string of DNA to code for an entire item of information, they broke the file down to smaller chunks, so that no errors occur during synthesis or read-out. These chunks are then read in an appropriate manner or protocol, providing for 100 per cent accuracy.

RESEARCH Harvard Unisersity

European Bioinformatic Institute

Features of DNA for using it as an information storage device:

• Long-lived, stable and easily synthesized.

• Needs no active maintenance.

• Stores digital files without electricity for thousands of years.

• Last for tens of thousands of years .

• We can store 2.2 peta bytes in one gram of DNA.

• Highly reliable.

What did Goldman and group store in DNA? 

1. They stored all 154 sonnets of Shakespeare (in ASCII text),

2. The 1953 Watson-Crick paper on the DNA double helix (in PDF format)

3. A colour photograph of Hinxton (in JPEG) and A clip from the “I have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King (in MP3 format).

DISADVANTAGES:

•Today the Speed is low .

• Cost is high.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENT:

Goodbye Silicon, Hello DNA. The Future of Data Storage device.

DNA can be used in :

1.DNA Computing

2.DNA Nanotechnology

Conclusion:

The longer you want to store information, then, the more attractive DNA becomes. And the cost of sequencing and synthesising DNA is falling fast.,

"There's no problem with holding a lot of information in DNA”, "The problem is paying for doing that.”

We can't get obsessed with the fact that it may not be practical today. If we do any reasonable projection of current trends 5 or 10 years into the future you see that this is in the sweet spot.