title: To DNA, all information is equal.
abstract: Information storage capabilities are key in most aspects of society and the requirement for storage capacity is rapidly expanding. In principle, DNA could be a high-density medium for information storage. Church and coworkers recently demonstrated how binary data can be encoded, stored in, and retrieved from a library of oligonucleotides, increasing by several orders of magnitude the amount and density of manmade information stored in DNA to date. The technology remains in its infancy and important hurdles have yet to be overcome in order to realize its potential. However, DNA may be particularly useful as a storage-medium over long time-scales (centuries), because data-access is compatible with any large-scale DNA-sequencing and -synthesis technology.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. lau@sennels.dk
authors.forename: Lau
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sennels
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bentin
mesh_terms: D016248:Computer Storage Devices; D004247:DNA; D005815:Genetic Code; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D004247:DNA
keywords: DNA; binary encoding; bit; byte; information storage in DNA