MIT Develops New DNA Storage Method Inspired by 'Jurassic Park'

TapTechNews June 17 - In many science fiction movies, the plot of scientists extracting dinosaur DNA from amber and resurrecting dinosaurs excites and worries people. However, the good news brought by the researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this month is that inspired by the movie 'Jurassic Park', they used a kind of amber-like polymer to create a new type of DNA storage and preservation method, which has the advantages of high scalability, easy storage and extraction of DNA, and non-destructive extraction of DNA.

James Banal and Jeremiah Johnson, along with the rest of the MIT research team, published their research results last Thursday. DNA is rapidly becoming the storage method of the future, with incredible stability and density, which can store for a longer time than flash memory or disk storage, and can even store all the data in the world in a coffee cup. In addition to storing the genetic information of organisms, DNA can also be 'programmed' to store more traditional data and information.

This 'amber' storage method is expected to replace the currently commonly used cryogenic technology for long-term DNA preservation. The cryogenic method has disadvantages such as poor scalability, the need for extremely low temperatures for storage, and possible damage to DNA during the freezing process due to moisture or temperature fluctuations. Banal said in an interview with MIT: 'Freezing is the main way to preserve DNA, but it's very expensive and not scalable. I think our new preservation method may become an important technology for storing digital information on DNA in the future.' 'Amber' can store DNA at room temperature without damaging the data and has a high degree of scalability.

Programmable DNA has great potential in data storage. One cubic millimeter of DNA can store 1 billion gigabytes of information, and this information density is unmatched by any existing digital storage solution. More importantly, since DNA is composed of ATCG base pairs, the programmed DNA can use the four-base language instead of the binary language of traditional digital storage, thereby achieving higher storage efficiency.

The technology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is named T-REX (Thermosetting Reinforced Dry Preservation Method), which is still in the research stage but shows incredibly promising prospects. The researchers have successfully used T-REX amber to store DNA data samples including the US Declaration of Independence, the theme song of Jurassic Park, and the entire human genome, and no errors have been found after retrieval, even when the 'amber' is exposed to a high temperature of up to 75°C.

Although the research team currently applies this technology to the medical field, it has revolutionary significance in the entire data storage field and may pave the way for future massive data storage solutions. Google once scanned a cubic millimeter of brain tissue, and the resulting storage data was 1.4 PB. With DNA storage technology, the approximately 140 acres (annotated by TapTechNews: about 56.7 hectares) of server space required to accommodate a complete brain scan can be reduced to the size of a small pile of rocks.