Is DNA the future of digital data storage?
By 
Nina Notman2024-07-15T08:08:00
DNA is being explored as a long-term solution to preserving digital information for future generations. Nina Notman reports
The idea of storing digital information in the pattern of adenines (As), thymines (Ts), cytosines (Cs) and guanines (Gs) in synthetic DNA has been floating around for decades. It offers a more compact and long-lasting alternative to binary code (the strings of zeroes and ones) used in traditional computing. The last dozen or so years has seen a flurry of robust examples of the storage of DNA data in action. Other demonstration projects include storing Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, part of an audio file of Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech and the first episode of the Netflix series Biohackers.