[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/5740\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EIt\u2019s in the genes \u2013 data storage turns to DNA\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to the latest research to come out of the Cambridge-based European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), DNA is capable of more than just storing genetic information alone: it also has the potential to store massive volumes of man-made data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research is now getting EU funding that could go towards refining the technique so that it could be scaled up to store all of the data that exists on Earth \u2013 estimated to be three zettabytes, or 3\u0026nbsp;000 billion billion bytes \u2013 which, for those who don\u2019t think in \u2018bytes\u2019, is roughly equivalent to a pile of 750 billion DVDs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the future, a cup of DNA could store 100 million hours of video.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStoring information in a miniscule form that cuts down on space and does away with the need for energy guzzling and costly hard disks would be a timely innovation in the digital age. As more and more data is generated, the need for economical and durable forms of data storage also rises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt was this pressing issue that prompted the key authors of the EBI research project, Nick Goldman and EBI Associate Director Ewan Birney, to act.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018At the Institute, we share biological data with other scientists to improve their insights into life,\u2019 said Goldman. \u2018We add value to it and send it back into the research community via the Internet. But we realised that, as the volume of biological data we receive grows exponentially, our budget to handle and store it does not. Disks are expensive. We needed to find a way of storing large volumes of data in a small space, cheaply \u2013 and ensure that it could be retrieved efficiently.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe pair hit upon their approach to resolving the problem three years ago. \u2018Ewan and I were chatting one evening after a work conference in Hamburg. We were joking about, thrashing out ideas for alternative data storage methods,\u2019 said Goldman. \u2018And then, after we\u2019d batted a few ideas back and forth, we just turned to each other and said, \u201cHow about using DNA?\u201d\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMuch of the funding for such research at the non-profit EBI comes from the European Union, under the Directorate-General Research \u0026amp; Innovation\u2019s Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes. In 2012, the Institute received EUR\u0026nbsp;7.3 million from the European Commission.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore they started, Goldman and Birney put together a project research team at the EBI, which forms part of the EU-wide European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). They also enlisted another actor \u2013 Agilent Technologies, a California-based biomedical technologies company with expertise in writing DNA \u2013 to complete the research network. \u2018Agilent saw it as a challenge and a fun piece of research,\u2019 says Goldman. \u2018They provided the required DNA samples to us for free.\u2019\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u2018We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and still make sense of it.\u0026#039;\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003ENick Goldman, European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge, UK\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EShall I compare thee to a DNA?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u2018We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and still make sense of it. It is also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy,\u2019 Goldman said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe experiment to see if they could actually use DNA to store information took place in three stages:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E1.\u003C\/strong\u003E First up were the EBI team. \u2018Our role was to invent a DNA code into which digital information could be translated,\u2019 said Goldman.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETypically, a file on a computer hard disk is stored in binary code, comprising zeros and ones. The computer \u2018knows\u2019 the rules of the code and translates the information it receives accordingly. It was up to the EBI team to rewrite the binary code into a DNA sequence on a computer file.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe coding system of DNA \u2013 or deoxyribonucleic acid \u2013 is built on four nitrogen bases, identified by the letters A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine) and T (thymine). The trick was to write a DNA sequence where the same letters were never repeated. One way of decreasing the risk of errors was to write only short strings of DNA.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We figured, let\u2019s break up the code into lots of overlapping fragments going in both directions, with indexing information showing where each fragment belongs in the overall code, and make a coding scheme that doesn\u2019t allow repeats. That way, you would have to have the same error on four different fragments for it to fail \u2013 and that would be very rare,\u2019 Birney said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E2.\u003C\/strong\u003E Once they had their DNA sequence design in place, they used it to encode an MP3 clip of Martin Luther King\u2019s famous \u2018I have a dream\u2019 speech, a photo of the EMBL-EBI lab, an image of the famous DNA double helix structure as identified by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, and a text file of all 154 of Shakespeare\u2019s sonnets.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe encoded computer files were flown to Dr Emily Leproust of Agilent Technologies in California. \u2018We downloaded the files from the web and used them to synthesise hundreds of thousands of pieces of DNA. The result looks like a tiny speck of dust,\u2019 Leproust said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring the synthesis process, Agilent manufactured DNA that matched the DNA sequence sent to them by the EBI. Using technology that is a bit like an inkjet printer, they fired the encoded DNA in the form of miniscule droplets onto a microscope\u2019s glass slide. The fluid was then freeze dried and the resulting speck of dust containing 739 kilobytes of data was flown back to Cambridge.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E3.\u003C\/strong\u003E Reconstituted in water, the substance was shipped on to the EMBL\u2019s Heidelberg office in Germany, where it was read back by sequencing machinery and the digital information reconstructed with 100 percent accuracy, the researchers said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe EBI exists in large part thanks to funds received from the EMBL\u2019s 20 member states, but Goldman sees EU funding as playing a vital indirect role in expanding its work. \u2018In this research project, for example, we really benefited from being able to call on team members whose skills had been honed on schemes funded by the EU and who could assist in data analysis and data modelling. Sometimes, of course, the EBI gains essential hardware through funding, but here it was the EU\u2019s \u201cinvestment in people\u201d that counted for us.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMore of a long-term thing\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo, do the results of their research mean the end of the hard disk? Not quite yet. At the moment, the team sees its main application as storing information that needs to be archived for a long period of time and accessed on an infrequent basis.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018From a cost point of view, DNA data storage really comes in to its own over the long term,\u2019 says Goldman. \u2018The one-off cost for DNA sequencing is still very high. But once that expenditure has been made, it becomes a very cheap way of archiving information. With DNA, maintenance costs are minimal as the cost of endlessly retransferring information from one outdated medium to another \u2013 such as video tape to CD \u2013 can be dispensed with. It costs virtually nothing to store and, unlike video tape which degrades rapidly with time, lasts thousands of years.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPeople will start using DNA to store data within the next 50 years, Goldman believes, as the cost of DNA sequencing goes down.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018Right now, I could see it as providing an excellent way of storing data that is now held on magnetic tapes \u2013 it\u2019s not impossible to imagine that those vast dusty archives of tapes, whose corridors are currently patrolled by data retrieval robots, could be done away with once and for all with our method.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-rknkinzxqcbct55x4kiirlneqcbg-tvykkkzgkyximm\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-RKNKinzXqCbcT55x4KiIrlnEqCbG-tVYkkKzgkYXiMM\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]