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"an expensive sequencer is needed to retrieve data" Given how long it still takes to sequence an individual's genome ("only" 3 gigabases), this may not be prac
by wgrover 16y ago
"an expensive sequencer is needed to retrieve data"
Given how long it still takes to sequence an individual's genome ("only" 3 gigabases), this may not be practical any time soon.
Anyway, generating astronomical amounts of data really small using DNA isn't that hard - say you synthesize short pieces of DNA, each 34 bases long, randomly selecting A, C, T or G for each base (easy to do with a commercial DNA synthesizer). If you make about a millimole (10^20 molecules) of this DNA, odds are that each piece of DNA has a unique sequence. You could have your own little jar containing 10^20 unique molecules. If the presence of a particular piece of DNA represents a TRUE for a given bit, you have about 10 exabytes of data storage in a jar.
Now, operating on that data is another story...
- bhickey 16y agoIt doesn't take particularly long to sequence a human genome. If you want long reads, you need to spend more time sitting on the machine. Last I checked, the limiting steps were contention for machine time and library prep. If you're doing a custom library prep it can be very time consuming, but I believe the trend is moving toward whole exome sequencing. We should see sub-$5k exomes (at scale) in 2011.
- wgrover 16y agoYou're definitely right. I just meant that, until you can sequence a genome faster and cheaper than you can read 90 GB off of a hard drive, storing information in DNA and reading it out via sequencing may not be feasible.