Missouri team shows how to rewrite bits stored in DNA

Scientists at the University of Missouri have found a way to rewrite data stored in DNA, meaning the fundamentals of life can act as more than just a gloopy alternative to tape.

The University of Missouri disclosed the advance in a post yesterday, referring to DNA as a potential "solution to the growing data crisis." Encoding information into DNA would allow all the world's data to be stored in "something the size of a shoebox," it said, and would require far less energy than current storage infrastructure.

There's just one critical flaw: "Once data is written into DNA, it can't be changed."

However, the post continued, a team led by Li-Qun "Andrew" Gu, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, has developed a way around this, achieved via "a compact electronic device paired with a molecular-scale detector called a nanopore sensor."

As DNA passes through the sensor, "it creates subtle electrical changes that software translates back into zeros and ones and, ultimately, the original data file."

According to an earlier academic paper published by the team, the approach uses frameshift encoding and toehold-mediated strand displacement (TMSD).

The former "uses the simple annealing of microstaples of varying lengths to a template strand to introduce checkpoint frameshifts that represent distinct bit values." The paper describes TMSD as "an enzyme-free approach enabling fast, high-yield strand exchange at room temperature in nucleic acid hybridization reactions."

Combining the two techniques enables "transient, parallel, and specific bit-level data writing, erasing, and rewriting, opening up avenues for diverse profound applications."

The scientists speculate that the technique could allow operations beyond simple storage. "For instance, in a decision-making system, the DNA memory could simultaneously quantify large populations of microstaples produced as outputs from DNA computing processes while also enabling direct in-memory computing—all integrated within a single DNA template."

The approach could also be used in encryption as it could "generate key sizes of hundreds of bits on a single template, meeting the Advanced Encryption Standard 256-bit protocol."

Gu said: "DNA storage could protect everything from personal memories and important documents to scientific data and corporate archives – without the added cybersecurity concerns."

What Gu and his team didn't say was when the technology might become practical.