Another machine then collects the encoded DNA molecules and concentrates them into pellet form. In CATALOG’s technology demonstrations, “a computer reads the binary data and generates instructions for our liquid handler to move around our premade short pieces of DNA, and combine them in combinations that represents the ones and zeros that we want to store,” Park says. “These enzymes offer a way to change the state of a DNA molecule, so if you think about it, it is a way to store arbitrary digital information using those different states of DNA molecules, working in test tubes instead of inside of a cell,” Park says. Roquet was studying a class of enzymes called recombinases that can recognize and manipulate specific sequences within a longer piece of DNA. Park, who trained as a microbiologist and was working as a postdoctoral researcher, began talking with Nathaniel Roquet, who was finishing up a doctorate in biophysics.
CATALOG is bringing a distinctive technical approach to speed this process, readying a demonstration system for commercial service this year.īased in Boston, CATALOG is looking for partnerships with large organizations who struggle with extreme data archival needs-and perhaps take an interest in even more radical technologies down the road to perform parallel computing in DNA itself.ĬATALOG began with a connection in the lab of Timothy Lu, MIT associate professor of biological engineering and of electrical engineering and computer science. One key bottleneck is the time required to synthesize the data-encoding DNA. The DNA data storage techniques demonstrated in labs, however, have been extremely slow and expensive compared to current storage technologies. “It’s also got an extremely long shelf life DNA can last for thousands of years.” “DNA has incredible information density you can store about a million times as many bits in the same volume as compared to flash drives or magnetic media such as hard drives and data tape,” Park says.
#Dna catalog system lens system code
As odd as it may seem to use the molecule that captures biology’s genetic code for digital tasks, DNA offers compelling potential advantages. In recent years, a number of labs have shown the ability to encode and store digital information in synthetic DNA. “That’s a lot more useful data than we will have the ability to store,” says Hyunjun Park, cofounder and chief executive officer of CATALOG, an MIT STEX25 startup company.ĬATALOG aims to solve this problem with a novel technology that employs the first known form of information storage on this planet: DNA. And this tsunami of data is now raising a previously unthinkable challenge. By one estimate, we’ll create 160 zettabytes (trillions of gigabytes) annually by 2025. Forget mere “Big Data.” Around the globe, we are generating data at an incomprehensible rate.
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