Data and image storage on synthetic DNA: existing solutions and challenges

Abstract

Storage of digital data is becoming challenging for humanity due to the relatively short life-span of storage devices. Furthermore, the exponential increase in the generation of digital data is creating the need for constantly constructing new resources to handle the storage of this data volume. Recent studies suggest the use of the DNA molecule as a promising novel candidate which can hold 500 Gbyte/mm^3 (1000 times more than HDD drives). Any digital information can be synthesized into DNA in vitro and stored in special tiny storage capsules that can promise reliability for hundreds of years. The stored DNA sequence can be retrieved whenever needed using special machines that are called sequencers. This whole process is very challenging, as the process of DNA synthesis is expensive in terms of money and sequencing is prone to errors. However, studies have shown that when respecting several rules in the encoding, the probability of sequencing error is reduced. Consequently, the encoding of digital information is not trivial, and the input data need to be efficiently compressed before encoding so that the high synthesis cost is reduced. In this paper, we present a survey on the storage of digital data in synthetic DNA, explaining the problem which is tackled by this novel field of study, present the main processes included in the storage workflow as well as the history of different studies and the most well-known algorithms that have been proposed in the bibliography on DNA data storage.