Store information into bacteria: The human USB permanently

The future is in our hands, simply because our hands have a lot of bacteria.

The problem of information storage is gradually coming to a dead end, when storage technology is still not growing after decades, except that storage devices are getting smaller and more powerful.

But it is possible that the future of storage is not in the field of technology, but in the field of biology. In this 2016, many researchers demonstrated the storage capacity of a DNA drop: it can hold the entire history of mankind! We were able to have "biological hard drives" thanks to microbial clusters that were turned into data storage organisms.

We were able to have "biological hard drives" thanks to microbial clusters that were turned into data storage organisms.

Prior to this time, the largest amount of information that researchers could get into a living cell was 11 bits, corresponding to storing 2 arithmetic characters. With this new technology, you can store up to 100 bytes of data, which is enough to store the text you are reading right now.

"We want to know that it is possible not to use Nature's mother's methods, write data directly on the bacterial cell genome," said Seth Shipman, University geneticist. Harvard.

With this method, if the reproductive bacteria multiply as they usually do, the information will be "reproduced" even in later generations. The data will be stored on a constantly expanding "hard drive" , scientists can read data by viewing their genomes whenever they want, with any micro bacteria in the pile.

E. coli is one of the bacteria brought out as a test USB.

In this field of study, the important factor is that scientists have to put information in the form of a piece of code into the genetic strip, but this study chooses an unusual path and tool. It is revolutionary genomic technology called CRISPR.

CRISPR is the natural defense system of bacteria, to help them fight other bacteria-eating species, or viruses that can affect bacterial cells. Using their enzymes, these bacteria are able to "take" a piece of DNA from the virus that attacks them. This action not only weakens the ability of the virus to attack, but also causes the bacteria to retain the "aggressive" behavior of these viruses, to prevent the attacks of viruses of the same type they can encounter in the future.

The DNA fragments obtained will be copied when the bacteria divide, which means that the next generation of that bacterium will still be passed on to the knowledge that its predecessor has learned. The team of researchers realized that if the genetic information was given to the "CRISPR" group of bacteria , the specific example here was E. coli, which could "feed" itself. That information, turn that information into a part of your body.

Bacterial cells in the state after "CRISPR".

Fortunately, these bacteria store DNA fragments in sequences, so all the sequences are clearly sequenced. That means that researchers can save the information in a certain order, they are not worried because they know that they will be copied with the same order. That makes finding and retrieving pieces of information later convenient and easy.

But this storage is still a minor problem: not all bacteria respond equally , so much less information will be lost. However there are millions of different types of bacteria, so the information lost in this group of cells will appear in another group, when combined, it will still be complete information so the obstacle is not really big. .