DNA Based Storage: Introduction, Characteristics, Applications and Challenges

Abstract

Over the years, as humans have made progress, data has come to the forefront and has become one of the principal elements of life. No matter the field, all aspects of life are now dependent on data in one way or the other. Be it hospitals or financial institutions; sports teams or researchers, all operate on some form of data during their functioning. This ever-increasing dependency on data further leads to the need for its storage. The capability of present storage mechanisms is not able to keep up with the exponentially increasing demand. This along with other factors such as high setup costs, high maintenance charges, security, and accessibility are pushing towards an alternative avenue of storage. DNA or the code of life is very similar to the binary based data systems that we operate on, hence is being looked at, as the alternative to conventional methods. This field has seen massive amounts of developments in the recent past and is finding a strong footing. Its theoretical capability to store all the data ever created in a finger-sized device is one of the many factors, which makes it such an interesting field to study and know about. This paper describes how this domain of storage system(s) basically functions, the work is done in this field in the past, its advantages and limitations along with the challenges that this domain needs to overcome to become practically viable bringing a paradigm shift in computing.