Using DNA for Permanent Data Storage
March 20, 2012 | Terry Sharrer
Because of DNA’s chemical simplicity and structural compactness, engineers have long thought genetic material might be useful for any kind of information storage. With that in mind, scientists in Taiwan and Germany have developed a data storage device that consists of salmon DNA, imbedded with silver nanoparticles, placed between two electrodes. UV light conditions the DNA to turn off or on an electrical current which permanently changes the nucleotides. As such, DNA provides a “write-once-read-many-times” means for permanent data storage. MORE