Storing Media onto DNA

In the past two decades, demand for data storage has skyrocketed, as has the destructive environmental impact of data centres worldwide. In May of 2021, an article in Forbes reported that these centres currently account for about 1% of the demand for electricity worldwide, and contribute about 0.3% of global CO2 emissions. As demand for storage grows, so too will these centres’ contributions to the global environmental crisis. Some have suggested that DNA may be the solution to both the need for more storage space and for the need to mitigate our increasingly deleterious impact on the planet. 

DNA is an incredibly dense storage medium–theoretically, all the world’s data could be stored on a volume of DNA that would fit inside an average coffee mug. DNA is also remarkably robust, with the potential to last for centuries or even millennia. Of course, this requires synthesizing an enormous amount of data, as well as creating effective, efficient systems with which to decode that DNA and deliver the information it contains on demand.

Suggested Reading

Mendell, M., Hogan, M. and Verhoeven, D., Matters (and metaphors) of life and death: How DNA storage doubles back on its promise to the world. The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien.

Hogan, M. and Verhoeven, D., 2021. 6. Sustainable DNA: In Conversation. Right Research: Modelling Sustainable Research Practices in the Anthropocene.

Hogan, Mél. 2020 “DNA” Uncertain Archives (MIT Press) Nanna Thylstrup, Daniela Agostinho, Annie Ring, Catherine D'Ignazio, and Kristin Veel (eds).

Hogan, M., 2018. Templating Life: DNA as Nature’s Hard Drive. Public, 29(57), pp.145-153.

 The implications of DNA data storage are wide ranging and should be understood through the nuanced historical, political, infrastructural and social context of DNA research and technology. Each of the modules on this site offer a unique way for you to conceptualize and question genomic media.