Making DNA Data Storage a Reality

A few kilograms of DNA could theoretically store all of humanity’s data, but there are practical challenges to overcome.

Written byCatherine Offord

| 14 min read

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In the late 1970s, a bizarre theory began making its way around the scientific community. DNA sequencing pioneer Frederick Sanger of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology and his colleagues had just published their landmark paper on the genome of virus Phi X174 (or φX174), a well-studied bacteriophage found in E. coli.¹ That genome, some said in the excitement that followed, contained a message from aliens.

In what they termed a “preliminary effort. . . to investigate whether or not phage φX174 DNA carries a message from an advanced society,” Japanese researchers Hiromitsu Yokoo and Tairo Oshima explored some of the reasons extraterrestrials might choose to communicate with humans via a DNA code.2 DNA is durable, the authors noted in their 1979 article, ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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