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Hiding and Storing Messages and Data in DNA

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Abstract

In the living cell, DNA functions as a principal informational molecule: it holds a linear array of heritable genetic information and it is the storehouse of this information. And while in nature DNA encodes proteins, the current ability to readily generate sufficiently long stretches of synthetic DNAs can be used for encrypting in DNA sequences some secret messages and for encoding and storing in DNA the large amounts of digital data, or even for tagging (or marking) and tracing various objects and materials with the coded DNA labels. To practically do so, we also need the ability to selectively amplify tiny amounts of DNA carrying an encoded or encrypted message or a label, and to read the DNA sequence in order to retrieve the DNA message (or DNA label). Fortunately, all this can now be done automatically by special machines.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Experiments proved that bacteriophages and bacterial spores , which are extraordinarily resistant living species, can survive in the harsh environment of outer space if they are laid within meteorite rocks to be shielded from harmful cosmic radiation [6]. These rocks would also protect microorganisms from intense frictional heat during a high-speed passage through the Earth’s atmosphere [7].

  2. 2.

    Instead of encryption code, digital binary encoding scheme was used in this experiment, which will be discussed below in Sect. 2.3.

  3. 3.

    The general idea of using DNA as a minute information storage tool was originally proposed in mid-1960s by American mathematician Norbert Wiener, one of the founding fathers of cybernetics, and independently by Russian physicist Mikhail Neiman, who also contemplated at the same time the possibility of storing and retrieving data in DNA molecules [22].

  4. 4.

    In 2002, the group of researchers from Duke University (Durham, USA) intended to build very large, petabit-sized (~1015 bits) DNA-based data storage [29], but this promising project has never been completed.

  5. 5.

    In this paper, renowned physicist Richard Feynman outlined the concepts of nanotechnology.

  6. 6.

    It is however possible that in the future certain innovative technologies would make it possible the faster reading of DNA sequences similar to the reading of magnetic tapes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boston, MA, USA

    Vadim V. Demidov

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  1. Vadim V. Demidov
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Demidov, V.V. (2020). Hiding and Storing Messages and Data in DNA. In: DNA Beyond Genes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36434-2_2

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