DNA as a digital information storage device: hope or hype?

The total digital information today amounts to 3.52 × 1022 bits globally, and at its consistent exponential rate of growth is expected to reach 3 × 1024 bits by 2040. Data storage density of silicon chips is limited, and magnetic tapes used to maintain large-scale permanent archives begin to deteriorate within 20 years. Since silicon has limited data storage ability and serious limitations, such as human health hazards and environmental pollution, researchers across the world are intently searching for an appropriate alternative. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is an appealing option for such a purpose due to its endurance, a higher degree of compaction, and similarity to the sequential code of 0’s and 1’s as found in a computer. This emerging field of DNA as means of data storage has the potential to transform science fiction into reality, wherein a device that can fit in our palms can accommodate the information of the entire world, as latest research has revealed that just four grams of DNA could store the annual global digital information. DNA has all the properties to supersede the conventional hard disk, as it is capable of retaining ten times more data, has a thousandfold storage density, and consumes 108 times less power to store a similar amount of data. Although DNA has an enormous potential as a data storage device of the future, multiple bottlenecks such as exorbitant costs, excruciatingly slow writing and reading mechanisms, and vulnerability to mutations or errors need to be resolved. In this review, we have critically analyzed the emergence of DNA as a molecular storage device for the future, its ability to address the future digital data crunch, potential challenges in achieving this objective, various current industrial initiatives, and major breakthroughs.

The entire human race is driven by information, and in this technology-oriented era, information is power. Humans have a natural propensity for accessing more and more information in as little time and space, as possible. Storage of all the accumulated information for future reference is an inherent part of our intellectual evolution. When the prehistoric man realized the significance of data storage, he tried to preserve all that he could see in his surroundings, through cave paintings and engravings on stone tablets. Starting from rocks, bones, paper, and punched cards, we traversed into the time of magnetic tapes, drums, films, gramophone records, floppies, and so on. The modern method of data storage has evolved from optical discs including CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs to portable hard drives and USB flash drives. As mankind’s rate of knowledge acquisition has escalated to its current peak, increasing amount of data is being accumulated and various ways of data storage and retrieval have been invented. An unprecedented breakthrough was witnessed in 1928 when Fritz Pfleumer, a German–Austrian engineer, invented the magnetic tape. This opened a new avenue of data storage, making us capable of concentrating piles of information into compact spaces. As technology evolved, computers made increasingly capacious and efficient data storage devices possible, which in turn allowed for more sophisticated ways of its utilization. The subsequent revolutionizing invention that gave a cutting edge to the technology of data storage was the invention of an integrated circuit. The first integrated circuit, also called a computer chip, was a simple structure lacking the sophisticated engineering of similar modern devices. It was created by the American engineer Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and was demonstrated on 12th September 1958. Kilby’s chip was made of the semiconductor germanium (Ge). However, within months, another inventor named Robert Noyce, popularly called “the mayor of the Silicon Valley”, created a silicon (Si)-based chip. Silicon is another semiconductor and is placed next to Ge in group 14 of the periodic table. The entire modern computing industry can trace its lineage back to this one chip, although modern chips are millions of times more complex. Today, our world is replete with integrated circuits, starting from computers to almost every modern electrical device including cars, television sets, CD players, and cellular phones. The use of silicon to manufacture the microprocessor of computers, our giant data storage devices, immediately influenced our data storage efficiency. It favoured the idea of a practical desktop computer possible. This immediately made the computer an important member of every busy office desk. However, in this era of digital dependency, the generation of massive amounts of data has created problems pertaining to long-term storage, high energy consumption, and pollution associated with the manufacture of silicon chips, which has motivated researchers to investigate alternative data storage media.

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