Can you imagine storing the entirety of the world's data in the trunk of a car? It turns out that nature has already provided us with what may be the best way to store huge amounts of information (spoiler: DNA!). To learn with us about this amazing possibility, we were joined by Dr. Tracy Kambara, Head of Molecular Biology at Catalog, a Cambridge-based biotechnology company.
A curriculum is created for each discussion, which includes articles to distribute to the residents beforehand, a lesson to introduce the topic at the start of the discussion, and discussion questions to facilitate resident participation and engagement. Linked to this post is the complete discussion outline for our May 18th discussion on DNA Digital Data Storage at the North Hill Retirement Community. Below are excerpts from the document, including the list of articles distributed to the residents prior to the discussion and a list of some of the questions we discussed together.
Articles for distribution in advance to residents:
Discussion questions:
Preceding the discussion of storage, we discussed DNA synthesis generally: what are the ethics of synthesizing DNA? What are the worries? What are the regulations on synthesizing DNA? What are the potential applications of synthesizing DNA aside from storage?
What kind of expertise is required on the development team to make DNA data storage a reality? (biologists + computer scientists + data scientists + mechanical and electrical engineers + a whole lot more)
Data storage is an example of a use case where DNA, a naturally occurring molecule, is used as raw material for a non-biological process. Are there other examples where DNA or another biological material is repurposed for something else?
What industries could benefit from DNA data storage? Who might the ideal customers be? Would companies hire Catalog to encode/store their archives, or would it be storing information in real time on an hour to hour basis?
What are the technical/financial/marketing bottlenecks that have to be overcome in order for DNA data storage to take off? How is the synthesizing of DNA being sped up to make it more efficient for future use?
How low does the cost have to be in order to make it a reasonable alternative for companies, and how close are we to that number?
How does the technology at Catalog differ from the technology being developed by other labs?
What are the implications of DNA data storage technology for bioethics and biosecurity? How do data stay encrypted when translated into genetic information?
What is your greatest fear about this technology? What would be the worst case scenario?
What does it mean when Catalog says that they will soon be able to complete DNA-based computation?
I see that Catalog has received a new round of funding for 35 million dollars; how are they planning on using these new resources to further develop their technology?
Once the information is stored in the DNA, where do these liquid or pellets physically get stored? How do they get accessed if a customer wants to look something up?
To my understanding, although the act of sequencing DNA data strands destroys them, we can copy the DNA to make an abundance of this data-storing medium. What are the implications of this for widespread data storage? Will every piece of data need to be copied a bunch of times when first created, or will all data need to be re-copied periodically so that it doesn’t disappear?
A large part of the appeal of DNA data storage is its potential to limit the amount of computers dedicated to storing the world’s data and therefore prevent the environmental and economic consequences that come with this ever-growing number of storage warehouses. In a future in which such DNA data technology became widespread, would these data centers just be replaced with new data centers needed to house the DNA ‘printing presses’ that turn data into genetic information, and will the energy required to run them have a net benefit regarding the amount of electricity used to run and cool them?
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