We have already talked about computer science and DNA in two previous articles.
In the March 2017 article "New frontier: data encryption and DNA"We talked about the first experiments of the scientists of Sandia National Laboratories (managed by a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation) for the encryption of texts within the DNA.
A few months later we wrote about the encoding of a video inside DNA (v.articolo) and the possibility of transmitting data (through the reproduction of the organism) in time and space.
Now, at the end of March, Microsoft and the University of Washington have announced that they have developed an automatic system for writing and extracting data from synthetic DNA, a step forward in moving the new technology from test labs to datacenters, he says. Jennifer Langston in her article. In a simple test the word "Hello" was coded, then extracted with the use of an automatic system. The complete process was described in a recent article published in Nature.
Once again, the best technology for data storage seems to be that achieved by nature. Data storage in DNA indeed takes up very little space and consumes very little energy for maintenance, with an efficiency many orders of magnitude higher than the best existing data centers.
There is still a lot of work to be done but it is already possible to start thinking about automatic systems whose memory is composed of specially encrypted and encoded synthetic DNA.
It is also possible to imagine that it will be necessary to have organisms specifically designed so that in the reproductive process the error rate remains low, organisms created to function as memory of the processors of the future.
The cyber world will have to expand to consider new technologies, different from digital ones, but based on more or less sophisticated organic structures. Control systems must be extended to the control of biological substances that can be used for data transmission.
Computer systems are becoming increasingly similar to biological structures created by nature, with the intention of improving them when possible ...
https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/hello-data-dna-storage/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41228-8
