Chinese scientists have developed a new method for storing data in DNA that could revolutionize this narrow field. A group of researchers from Peking University and three other scientific institutions published a paper on the application of DNA methylation for the selective mutation of “epi-bits” on already existing DNA strands. This significantly speeds up the data recording process, but it is still too early to implement the technology.

Writing information into DNA allows you to achieve an incredibly high data density of up to 215 Pbytes per 1 gram, but the writing and reading processes are still very expensive and very slow. Traditionally, inserting data into DNA means creating sequences from scratch, but Chinese scientists are proposing writing information into existing strands, theoretically saving time and money.

The “Epi-bits” method is based on a natural process called “DNA methylation”; It mimics the evolution of DNA strands throughout life. Scientists have created 700 types of mobile DNA from nucleic acids. This method can be implemented manually or automatically: During testing, researchers first printed and then recalled 18,833-bit and 252,504-bit (31.5 kbyte) images in automatic mode at a rate of 350 bits per response.

A barcode system is used for recording and storage to help mark where pieces of data are located so that they can be retrieved with a certain level of speed and accuracy. Writing information into DNA by hand is a difficult process even for non-experts: 60 volunteers with no experience working in a biolab manually encoded 5,000 bits of text data using the iDNAdrive data storage service.

The method of storing data in DNA proposed by Chinese scientists takes advantage of the strengths of this technology (high density and stability) and adds programmability and scalability to them. However, it is too early to use this in practice: currently information is recorded at around 40 bits/s; That’s about 30 million times slower than a traditional hard drive.

Instead, it turns out that the cost is about ten times lower than creating a series from scratch – just buying a conventional “pen and ink” is enough. Prices in the market are still very high; French startup Biomemory charges €1,000 for recording 1 kbyte on a DNA memory card.