Dna Technology to Store Digital Data

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1.1 Motivation:
Since time immemorial, mankind has wanted to share and use information for later use. First, it was through the caveman paintings and symbols. Then we invented the alphabets, ideograms, numbers and other symbols. Using these, books were written and stored for future generations, in palm leaves, papyrus sheets or paper. The invention of printing brought the Gutenberg revolution, making multiple copies easily and spreading education to millions of people. Printed books occupy space. Libraries and archives are bursting at the seams. Enter the computer age and digitization using the binary code of combining zeros and ones (0,1) for alphabets and other such symbols, and reading them using the on-off electrical signals, which has made electronic storage possible, cutting down the size and space for ‘hard copies’. Integrated circuits, processors and related electronic wizardry have shrunk the size of computers and storage devices from room-size to finger nail size. Digital information is accumulating at an astounding rate, straining our ability to store and archive it. Hard drive storage has been made cheaper, faster and larger. Disk storage technology in general has seen incredible advances including reduction in size, an increase in real density, and an increase in internal data rates, but the future of hard disk technology is uncertain. Digital production, transmission and storage have revolutionized how we access and use information but have also made archiving an increasingly complex task that requires active, continuing maintenance of digital media. This challenge has focused some interest on DNA as an attractive target for information storage because of its capacity for high-density information encoding, longevity under easily achieved conditions and proven track record as an information bearer.

1.2 Problem Statement:
Previous DNA-based information storage approaches have encoded only trivial amounts of information or were not amenable to scaling-up, and used no robust error-correction and lacked examination of their cost-efficiency for large-scale information archival. Although techniques for manipulating, storing and copying large amounts of existing DNA have been established for many years, one of the main challenges for practical DNA-based information storage is the difficulty of synthesizing long sequences of DNA to an exactly specified design.

1.3 Framework of Proposed System:
The DNA-based storage medium has different properties from traditional tape- or disk-based storage. As DNA is the basis of life on Earth, methods for manipulating, storing and reading it will remain the subject of continual technological innovation. As with any storage system, a large-scale DNA archive would need stable DNA management and physical indexing of depositions. But whereas current digital schemes for archiving require active and continuing maintenance and regular transferring between storage media, the DNA-based storage medium requires no active maintenance other than a cold, dry and dark environment yet remains viable for thousands of years even by conservative estimates. Existing technologies for copying DNA are highly efficient meaning that DNA is an excellent medium for the creation of copies of any archive for transportation, sharing or security. Overall, DNA based storage has potential as a practical solution to the digital archiving problem and may become a cost-effective solution for rarely accessed archives.

Fig 1.1:- Storage Evolution of DNA

Literature Review

2.1 Introduction:

Fig 2.1:- Structure of DNA

Deoxyribonucleic Acid, is the most fundamental component of all of us. We begin our lives from an egg from our mothers that have been fertilized by the sperm of our fathers. These eggs and sperm collectively contain the DNA of our parents and provide the ‘blueprint’ for our construction. Indeed, it is quite extraordinary...
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