Blog 27: Storing Data in DNA

If someone told you that the entire internet could fit inside a shoebox, you’d probably laugh at them. But for synthetic biology, it might be possible. Not by shrinking hard drives, but by storing information in something far more powerful: DNA.

For billions of years, DNA has been the most efficient, durable, compact storage system on Earth. Every plant, animal, and bacterium uses it to store life’s code. And now, scientists are learning how to use it to store our code.

Why DNA Beats Every Storage Device We’ve Ever Built

Traditional data storage, like our phones, tablets, and computers, all face the same problems:
They take up space, break easily, and decay after a few decades.

DNA has none of those weaknesses. Here are some more facts:

1. Density:

• DNA can store 1 million times more data per gram than a modern hard drive. For example, a single gram could hold over 200 million gigabytes.

2. Durability:

• DNA can last hundreds of thousands of years, while our digital files last maybe 20–30 years. We literally can still read DNA from woolly mammoths.

3. Stability:

• With DNA, you don’t need electricity, and you don’t need cooling. All you need is a dry tube and time.

How Does DNA Data Storage Actually Work?

At first, it sounds impossible: how do you store a movie or a file inside living molecules?

The process is surprisingly elegant:

1. Convert digital data into A, T, C, and G

• All digital files are made of 0s and 1s. Scientists translate those into DNA’s four letters.
  
  

2. Synthesize the DNA

• A DNA printer builds the strands with the encoded sequence.
  
  

3. Store the DNA

• The DNA is placed in a vial or freeze-dried pellet.
  
  

4. Read it back later

• When you want the data, you sequence the DNA and convert the letters back into digital form.
  
  

It’s just like writing and reading a flash drive, but this time, the flash drive is literally alive.

Why This Matters: Data Is Becoming a Problem

Every day, humanity produces roughly 328 million terabytes of new data. This data comes from photos, videos, medical scans, scientific papers, satellite images, and so much more.

By 2030, global data storage needs will outgrow all available hard drive factories on Earth. We literally will not be able to build enough servers.

DNA storage changes everything: there will be no more giant, energy-hungry data centers and no more environmental waste from old electronics.

Imagine NASA storing mission logs in DNA that lasts long after humans leave Earth. Or scientists storing climate records for 10,000 years into the future. Or even hospitals storing patient genomes forever without massive servers. DNA could be the solution to all of these. 

The Wildest Part - It’s Actually Happened

In 2017, scientists were able to store a full movie, a computer virus, a PDF, a JPEG, and an operating system all inside a speck of DNA.

More recently, researchers have begun storing AI models in DNA, allowing biological “memory banks” for future algorithms.

Some labs are even exploring living DNA storage, where engineered bacteria carry digital files inside their genomes. Instead of servers, we could one day have “data organisms” that self-replicate and preserve information far longer than silicon ever could.

The Challenges 

DNA storage is close, but not perfect yet.

There are still a few big challenges remaining:

1. Cost: Writing DNA is still expensive.

2. Speed: Reading data from DNA takes minutes, not milliseconds.

3. Errors: Synthesizing DNA can introduce mistakes.

However, even with these problems, synthetic biology is improving to solve them. Recently, scientists have begun working on:

• New enzymes that copy DNA more accurately

• Faster sequencing methods that read DNA instantly

• Cheaper synthesis through engineered bacteria that “print” DNA naturally

• Error-correcting gene circuits

Just like computers in the 1970s, DNA storage is in its early days. It’s slow, expensive, and experimental.

But we know where this story is going.

Final Remarks

If synthetic biology lets us store the internet in DNA, then biology becomes more than something we study, but a platform we can build on.

We’ve always used DNA to remember who we are. Soon, we might use it to remember everything.

That’s all I have for today. Sorry for the delay in posting. I was on vacation for Thanksgiving Break and couldn’t find a time to post. Expect more consistency moving forward.

Thanks for listening,

— Aidan Kincaid