Microsoft: the future is in data storage synthetic DNA

Twist Bioscience has recently confirmed that it has launched a research program in collaboration with Microsoft and the University of Washington, which involves the use of synthetic DNA as a storage medium. The company confirmed that it had sold the house in Redmond ten million long oligonucleotide (synthetic DNA sequences) to be used for encoding digital data. A research project trying to find an alternative solution to offer an extremely long-lived and particularly high capacity storage media.

The baseline scenario in which you place the research project and the goals are clearly illustrated by Emily M. Leproust, CEO of Bioscience Twist:

Today most of the digital data is stored in media that have a limited life and must be periodically re-encoded. The DNA is a promising storage medium, because it is able to last for thousands of years, offers a format of permanent storage and can be read at decreasing costs.

One possible answer to the need to store large amounts of data using durable media in the time that, in the future, it will become increasingly evident with the spread of cloud services. It is estimated, in fact, that the amount of digital data continues to double about every two years, while the media "traditional" will fail to keep pace consequently increasing the storage capacity. CEO Twist Bioscience has clarified some details of the tests in an interview with IEEE Spectrum telephone site which cites some statements of the manager:

They (Microsoft ed.) Have given us the sequence of DNA, we have constructed the DNA from scratch

When the data has been transformed into invisible molecules bottom of the tube, adds IEEE Spectrum, Twist will send to Microsoft for testing. The data encoded in the synthetic DNA can only be read by Microsoft, as pointed out by the CEO of Twist Biosciences.

we do not have the decryption key, so we have no idea what

The findings of the tests conducted by the Redmond in collaboration with the partners involved in the project are encouraging. Doug Carmean, biotech consultant who is working with Microsoft on the project said that the phase of initial tests with Twist has shown the ability to encode and recover 100% of the data from the synthetic DNA. According to a recent study presented at the American Chemical Society, the data stored in the synthetic DNA can last up to 2,000 years old, while a gram of DNA can hold nearly a-trillion gigabytes, or nearly one zettabyte, digital data.

The integration of this technology into a commercial product, however, is still far away: the experts directly involved in the project are clear in stating that will still take years to reach this goal, but the path is traced. No wonder that among the companies working to trace it appearing that Microsoft has identified in cloud storage, cloud computing and, more generally, the "data culture" essential points of his activities.