Using next-generation sequencing technology and a novel
strategy to encode 1,000 times the largest data size previously achieved in
DNA, a Harvard geneticist encodes his book in life’s language
Biology’s databank, DNA has long tantalized researchers with
its potential as a storage medium: fantastically dense, stable, energy efficient
and proven to work over a timespan of some 3.5 billion years. While not the
first project to demonstrate the potential of DNA storage, Church’s team
married next-generation sequencing technology with a novel strategy to encode
1,000 times the largest amount of data previously stored in DNA.
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