Chinese scientists store Chinese characters in DNA! How will DNA storage develop in the future?

Recently, a team of teachers and students from Southeast University successfully stored the school motto "Strive for Perfection" into a DNA sequence, achieving a new breakthrough in DNA storage technology. The relevant results were published in the international academic journal Science Advances.

Liu Hong's team improved the traditional chemical synthesis method and used electrochemical methods to "translate" the four words of Southeast University's motto "Strive for Perfection" into a DNA sequence, stored it on an electrode, and then successfully read it out.

"Our important breakthrough is to achieve the integration of DNA synthesis and sequencing. After the integration, the efficiency and accuracy of DNA storage will be improved, making it easier to achieve large-scale data storage."

In recent years, this field has ushered in a new research direction - DNA storage. This research will help solve the data storage problem in the big data era."

In 1994, Bill Gates sat on 330,000 pieces of paper, holding a CD in his hand and told the world: a CD can record more content than these 330,000 pieces of paper.

"In the next 5-15 years, Chinese scientists will be in a data center, holding a tube of DNA in their hands and telling the world: what is recorded here is the current data of the entire world." Recently, Fan Chunhai, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, made such a prediction about the future prospects of DNA storage technology.

What is DNA storage technology and why is it so promising?

DNA storage technology achieves new breakthrough

With the rapid development of information technology and digital technology such as the Internet and artificial intelligence, the amount of information is growing exponentially. Traditional storage media such as disks, hard drives, and flash memory have gradually failed to meet the needs of data storage worldwide.

In this context, DNA storage technology, which is the integration of information technology and biotechnology, has gradually come into our view.

Recently, a team of teachers and students from Southeast University successfully stored the school motto "Strive for Perfection" into a DNA sequence, achieving a new breakthrough in DNA storage technology. The relevant results were published in the international academic journal Science Advances.

The DNA storage electrode developed by the Southeast University team of teachers and students. Photo courtesy of Liu Hong's team

"DNA is a biological macromolecule with a defined sequence. DNA storage technology is to encode biological DNA molecules so as to store information on the DNA sequence," said Professor Liu Hong from the State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics at Southeast University.

Liu Hong's team improved the traditional chemical synthesis method and used electrochemical methods to "translate" the four characters of Southeast University's motto "Stop at Perfection" into a DNA sequence, which was stored on an electrode and then successfully read out. "Because I have a background in electrochemistry, and electrodes are the tools we use most often, I thought of using this as a starting point for research."

"Our important breakthrough is to achieve the integration of DNA synthesis and sequencing. Currently, the synthesis and sequencing of most DNA storage are separated, which is actually a relatively basic research in the laboratory," said Liu Hong. "After the integration is achieved, the efficiency and accuracy of DNA storage will be improved, making it easier to achieve large-scale data storage."

Talking about the original intention of the research, Liu Hong said: "The State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics at Southeast University has been engaged in research on bioelectronics. In recent years, this field has ushered in a new research direction - DNA storage, so we started this research a year ago. More importantly, this research will help solve the problem of data storage in the big data era."

According to statistics from International Data Corporation (IDC), the total amount of global data information will increase from 30ZB (Zettabyte) in 2018 to 163ZB in 2025.

"The speed at which data is generated now far exceeds the speed at which we produce these storage media, so new media must be used to solve this problem," said Liu Hong.

As for using DNA as a storage medium, Liu Hong believes that it has natural advantages: first, the information density is high. According to previous estimates by Microsoft Research, 1 cubic millimeter of DNA can store 1 EB (Exabyte) of data; second, the storage time is long and the stability is strong. Under the right conditions, it can be stored for tens of thousands of years; third, the storage energy consumption is very low.

It took Liu Hong's team just over a year to go from formal research to new breakthroughs. "But a lot of basic research actually started a long time ago," Liu Hong said. In 2013, Liu Hong returned to China after completing his postdoctoral work and has been doing research on electrochemical sensors. It was these eight years of accumulation that laid a solid foundation for the rapid breakthrough of DNA storage technology.

Professor Liu Hong (left) and his students observe the DNA storage electrode. Photo courtesy of Liu Hong's team

"While submitting the paper, we were still improving our research and adding a lot of new data. So although the paper is only a few pages long, our computational materials are probably dozens of pages long." Recalling the paper submission process, Liu Hong said: "In fact, every link in scientific research cannot be ignored. It took us about three or four months from submission to revision."

When asked why he chose to store the school motto in the DNA sequence, Liu Hong said frankly: "It may be because the school motto is engraved in the DNA of every teacher and student of Southeast University."

What challenges does DNA storage technology face?

As the amount of global data and information grows exponentially, DNA storage technology has begun to explore applications in different fields. Due to its storage advantages, DNA storage technology has also attracted the attention of many countries and regions.

The United States is the country with the most related planning and layout, covering multiple technical processes from "writing" to "reading" data; although the European Union has not issued clear document policies for the layout of DNA storage technology, it has also provided funding for related research and development; Japan, Australia and other countries have also further increased their attention to the field of synthetic biology; my country has also laid out related fields, and my country's "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly proposes to "accelerate the layout of cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing, quantum communications, neural chips, and DNA storage."

Enterprises have also long been keenly aware of the broad prospects of this field. Microsoft is one of the earliest companies to study DNA storage technology. In 2016, Microsoft announced the purchase of 10 million DNA strands for data storage research. In 2019, Huawei announced the establishment of a strategic research institute, stating that it will mainly develop cutting-edge technologies such as optical computing, DNA storage, and atomic manufacturing. At this year's Huawei Global Analyst Conference, Xu Wenwei, director of Huawei and dean of the Strategic Research Institute, said that he would use DNA storage to break through the ultra-large storage space model and coding technology and break the capacity wall.

Regarding the application scenarios of DNA storage technology, Liu Hong said that DNA storage is suitable for use in places where there is a need for long-term information storage. It mainly serves a storage function and does not require frequent information reading.

Although DNA storage technology has great potential, it still faces challenges in its application.

It is understood that the current DNA storage technology is still restricted by data overwriting and rewriting, random reading and writing, etc. "In particular, the cost and efficiency of DNA synthesis are still the main challenges restricting the development of DNA storage technology." Liu Hong said. According to industry analysts, it currently costs $800,000 to store 200MB of data in DNA.

"But I believe that with the continuous development of technology, the cost will become lower and lower," said Liu Hong.

Although the research has made important progress, Liu Hong believes that this is only a preliminary result. "In order to store more data, the next step is to do data storage based on large-scale electrode arrays. What we are doing now is just the first step. There is still a long way to go to use DNA as a storage medium." Liu Hong said.

Source: China Internet Information Magazine (ID: newmedia_2014)

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