53 thousand word Textbook encoded in DNA

Nature – 5.27-megabit book containing more than 53,000 words, 11 digital images and a computer program has been encoded in DNA — the largest amount of non-biological data yet stored in this way.

Sriram Kosuri at Harvard’s Wyss Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues created nearly 55,000 different short DNA strand to store the information.

Science – Next-Generation Digital Information Storage in DNA

Digital information is accumulating at an astounding rate, straining our ability to store and archive it. DNA is among the most dense and stable information media known. The development of new technologies in both DNA synthesis and sequencing make DNA an increasingly feasible digital storage medium. Here, we develop a strategy to encode arbitrary digital information in DNA, write a 5.27-megabit book using DNA microchips, and read the book using next-generation DNA sequencing.

Technology Review – The team encoded a draft HTML version of a book co-written by Church called Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. In addition to the text, the biological bits included the information for modern formatting, images and Javascript, to show that “DNA (like other digital media) can encode executable directives for digital machines,” they write

16 pages of supplemental material

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