Microsoft Research has discovered a method for reading and writing data in DNA format more quickly, bringing us closer to commercially viable DNA storage.
Until now, the practicality of DNA as a data storage medium has been severely limited by the amount and speed with which it could be synthesized. However, in a comprehensive examination, Microsoft Research's Bichlien Nguyen and Karin Strauss describe a novel approach for writing synthetic DNA using a chip that is 1000x faster than before, allowing for significantly higher write throughput and thereby lowering the cost of generating the material in the first place.
The team collaborated with the Molecular Information Laboratory (MISL) at the University of Washington, and their paper, Scaling DNA Storage with Nanoscale Electrode Wells, was published in Science Advances.
"It is early days for this research, and while we're encouraged by our early findings, we have nothing additional to share about future plans [for commercialization]," Microsoft said in a statement.
"To add more to the research itself, the DNA synthesis chip was a proof of concept that showed the electrode layout design could be used to generate massively parallel unique DNA sequences for data storage."
According to Microsoft, embedding digital logic in the chip would allow individual control of millions of electrode spots to write kilobytes per second of data in DNA as a natural next step. It said the technology will eventually reach arrays with billions of electrodes capable of storing megabytes of data every second in DNA. This will bring the performance and cost of DNA data storage much closer to those of tape.
Microsoft, as one of the world's leading cloud computing companies, has a major interest in the advancement of this technology, which will make cloud backup and cloud storage more durable and scalable as we approach the zettabyte era.
One of the two major issues with DNA storage is finding ways to boost write speeds (the other being cost). Microsoft is already moving on to the next phase now that the minimum write speed threshold has been reached.
As exciting as this all sounds, storing DNA on data is still a long way off. Putting aside the technical difficulties, DNA data storage is simply too expensive-a few gigabytes would cost thousands of dollars, according to ETH Zurich's Robert Grass, and the poor write speeds mean that DNA would not be suitable for frequently accessed data.
Still, scientists all across the world are attempting to get us closer to a time when the data we generate is stored on the same molecule that carries our genetic information.
