New breakthroughs turn DNA into a data bank

On January 23, a group of British scientists announced a new breakthrough in the search for "revolution" that turned DNA into a form of data storage.

>>>Turn DNA into 'living hard drive'

According to them, an artificial DNA particle could store data "mountains" of data that could be frozen, transported and stored for thousands of years. The archived content will be "read" in sequence of today's DNA sequences by genetic fingerprints and then changed them into computer codes.

" We all know that DNA is a very sophisticated way of storing information, because we can separate DNA from it ," said Nick Goldman, of the European Institute of Bioinformatics (EBI) in Cambridge, England. the bones of a mammoth existed 10,000 years ago and ensured that information was accurate ".

DNA is known to be a double helix compound, like a long helix consisting of four chemical ladders, adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T), and paired as C bonds. with G, T linked to A.

This sequence of letters includes a genome, or diagram of chemicals that form and maintain a living organism. Human DNA has more than three billion characters, rolled into a package of 24 chromosomes.

This work requires taking data in the form of 0 and in the binary code of the computer and transcribing the code "Base 3" using the numbers 0, 1, and 2. The data is continuously copied The second time into DNA coding based on characters A, C, G and T. A 5-character cluster is used for a single binary number. Later, the characters are converted into molecules using laboratory chemicals.

The researchers also say that this work does not require the use of any DNA to live or create any kind of life and that the nature of artificial coding does not have any function in the biological aspect.

Data is always accumulated with huge volumes from around the world making storage very difficult. Meanwhile, magnetic disks and optical discs are very bulky, and must be stored in a dry place but still very perishable.

According to Ewan Berney, co-author of the study, the only drawback of DNA storage is costly, sequencing and reading DNA often takes weeks if technology is used today. Therefore, it is not suitable for fast recovery information.

However, Mr. Berney said that this measure is suitable for data stored in 500 to 5,000 years, such as the encyclopedia of knowledge and culture.

The authors argue that according to the current trend, the cost of sequencing DNA into chains will decrease every decade, making DNA storage more feasible over the next 50 years.