How Scientists Encoded “The Wizard of Oz” Into DNA

University of Texas researchers unveil protocol to shuffle large data stores into strands of genetic material

27 Jul 2020 4 min read Margo Anderson is senior associate editor and telecommunications editor at IEEE Spectrum. Illustration: iStockphoto Synthetic DNA as a high-density data storage medium has fascinated digital futurists for years. The entire internet could be coded into DNA strands that fit inside a shoebox, while the DNA molecule is so stable it can last tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. In 2013, for instance, scientists sequenced the entire genome of a 700,000 year-old horse fossil. The trick to date has involved shoehorning vast sums of bytes—a data standard tailor-made for linear and sequential stores like RAM and hard drives—into wet, squiggly forests of nano-sized deoxyribonucleic spaghetti noodles. Translating one data format to the other has been anything but straightforward.

Archived from IEEE Spectrum on 2025-02-09.