Sandia National Laboratories scientists are looking for partners to apply text encryption technologies using synthetic DNA technology.
Encryption is much more lasting than conventional technologies and virtually impossible to break, say researchers.
In September of the 2016, the Sandia laboratories team concluded a three year research project entitled "Syntetic DNA for Highly Secure Information Storage and Transmission".
The project has allowed to develop a new method for encrypting and storing information using DNA.
Currently the team is preparing to apply for the patent and to design the next-level technologies.
"We are discussing with various interlocutors with the aim of finding funders to continue our workSaid George Bachand, a bioengineer at the Sandia Center for Integrated Nanotechnology and principal investigator on the project. He added that it is too early to provide details on the ongoing negotiations but both the government and the US Department of Defense have contacted him.
Among the potential applications, such as the conservation of historical documents, Bachand plans to use technology to memorize the history of materials: place, date and time of preparation of the lot number.
"Let's imagine now if you could take all this information, insert it inside a piece of synthetic DNA and attach it to the material. This could be a simple way to certify that this material was not counterfeit and that it respects the supplier's specifications".
These are the statements reported in an article by George I. Seffers appeared in the February issue of 2017 Signal, a body of the AFCEA (Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association).
The new technology opens totally unexplored scenarios. If you devote some time to explore the possibilities offered by the new technology on the site of the Sandia laboratories (http://www.sandia.gov/), interesting information can be found.
Consider the amount of data produced during basic physics experiments, for example at CERN. These are indisputably high numbers, for the conservation, management and analysis of which it is necessary to use enormous amounts of memory and, consequently, enormous quantities of energy.
Up to now, the technologies used for data retention are essentially two: analog and digital, both require that the data be rewritten every ten to twenty years, due to the degradation of the media used. Among analogue technologies we can also consider printed paper, which can last longer but requires much more storage space.
Now consider the DNA.
Today it is possible to extract DNA from an organic substance and interpret it correctly even after thousands of years.
The DNA contains in small spaces, high amounts of information and, for their conservation, does not require large amounts of energy, certainly not comparable to the energy used by giants such as Google to feed their Data Center and store information.
Marlene and George Bachand, the scientists who led the project, believe that once the basic technology is developed, the synthetic DNA technique can take an important place in the secure storage of information in our society.
Of course, it's not all within reach or easy.
After the theory, now, funds are being given to put it into practice, it is necessary to develop the techniques to "pour" information from one form to another and do it safely.
According to the estimates of the two scientists, it is theoretically possible to store around 2,2 petabytes of information (remember that a Petabyte is worth a million billion bytes) in one gram of DNA!
Sandia Laboratories scientists have already developed basic techniques to pass information between different technologies and are now trying to improve them to reduce time and costs.
I think it is useless to say what economic, but above all strategic, advantages can provide a nation with the use of this technology.
The encryption of data using synthetic DNA and the possibility of storing them, transmitting them and decoding them with low energy consumption and using vectors different from the classic ones, can give an extra edge to anyone who owns it.
The Sandia National Laboratory is a multi-program research laboratory run by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, which operates for the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration and says a lot about technology owners.
Here is a field on which I believe it is worth investing in Italy too, researchers in universities are there, and are a resource for the country, we hope that this article (and those that follow on the same topic) can direct them to a field of multidisciplinary research that could prove very useful for the nation in the near future.
(photo: Sandia Corporation)
