Research summary
The growth of cloud computing and big data is creating an information storage crisis. Although innovations in information density, stability, and energy consumption are coming, memory materials are approaching their limits. But could human DNA offer the answer to this challenge?
DNA can retain information for thousands to millions of years, and take 100 million times less energy to operate compared to state-of-the-art electronic memory. As Canada Research Chair in DNA Engineering, Dr. William Hughes is tapping into the structural integrity, information density and programmability of life’s most basic material to develop technologies to address today’s data storage challenges. He and his research team aim to create a storage paradigm, based on nucleic acid memory, in which information is stored in space, time and sequence. Their research could lead to the development of an optical, single-molecule sequencing technology to support DNA data storage.