Microsoft Breaks DNA Data Storage Record, Stores OK Go Music Video, Books And Much More

Microsoft researchers in collaboration with University of Washington computer scientists have set a new DNA storage record by storing 200 megabytes of digital data onto synthetic DNA molecular strands, thus breaking the last published record of about 22 megabytes encoded and decoded on DNA.

The media stored onto DNA included the top 100 books from Project Gutenberg, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in more than 100 languages, the Crop Trust's global seed database as well as a high-definition music video by the band OK Go, titled "This Too Shall Pass," reported ScienceAlert.

According to Douglas Carmean, the partner architect at Microsoft and project head, the data, once encoded, takes as little space as a tiny blob in a test tube "much smaller than the tip of a pencil."

In order to write data to DNA, the research team first translated the data from 1s and 0s into the "letters" of the four nucleotide bases of a DNA strand - (A)denine, (C)ytosine, (G)uanine and (T)hymine. After that Twist Bioscience translated those letters into the molecules and returned them back.

The research team chose OK Go's video in particular because they feel there's an interesting connection between Rube Goldberg machines and molecular biology.

"They're very creative and they bring a variety of other areas into their work," Microsoft Research DNA storage project lead Karin Strauss told Business Insider. "We see parallels with our work."

The aim of the initiative is to make synthetic DNA strands a viable alternative to conventional hard drives, optical disks, and other storage methods. In fact, DNA strands can store huge amounts of data much more densely than silicon-based hard drives. When kept in cool, dry, and dark conditions, the data stored in DNA can remain intact and readable for as long as 1,000 to 10,000 years.

DNA data storage could turn out to be a boon especially for the health care industry, including hospitals, considering the massive amount of patient data that is stored in big servers.

The research team claims that the fast growing technology would compress a big data center into a few sugar cubes. They expect that the costs of reading and writing DNA will drop significantly in the next few years.