Given the exponential production of digital data each year, and while current storage devices (hard drives, magnetic tapes) are no longer able to keep up, the molecular storage route in synthetic DNA seems promising. At least, as regards the archiving of “cold data”, that information that is rarely reread but of which it is essential to keep a copy (notarial deeds, legal, medical or audiovisual documents, etc.).
To write a binary code in DNA, researchers rely on its molecular structure, which is made up of a sequence of four nucleotides, each of which can encode two bits: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). This quaternary alphabet is translated into a series of 0s and 1s using, for example, the convention 00 → A; 01 → C; 10 → G and 11 → T. 0010110111 thus becomes AGTCT. DNA sequencing then makes it possible to decipher the coded message.
“DNA storage has the advantage of relying on very powerful biotechnological methods, with sequencers that have no equivalent for other molecules”explains Yannick Rondelez, research director at the School of Physics and Industrial Chemistry (ESPCI). Especially since DNA, already optimized by nature and extremely studied, has become familiar to a large community of technicians.
Intrinsic qualities
The origins of this science, at the crossroads of biology, chemistry and computer science, date back to the 1960s, but it was in 2012 that two major tests took place: one in the United States (George Church, Harvard) and another in the United Kingdom (Nick Goldman, European Bioinformatics Institute) – anchored this concept in reality. They succeeded in encoding kilobytes of data in DNA and paved the way for start-ups and manufacturers. The DNA Data Storage Alliance, a public-private consortium made up of around fifty members from around the world, was created in 2020 by four American companies, including the giants Microsoft and Western Digital.
“There are three poles: the United States, China and Europe. France is very active, we have the whole spectrum of capabilities”says Marc Antonini, research director at the CNRS (I3S laboratory, University of the Côte d’Azur and CNRS), who heads the Priority and Exploratory Research Programme and Equipment (PEPR) launched in 2022 by the government in this field (20 million euros over seven years).
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