Use of Bacteria to Store Data

E. coli bacteria has been known since long ago as the cause of death of millions of people in the history of human civilization due to outbreaks of diarrhea and vomiting that they caused. But recently a team of student researchers from the Chinese University in Hong Kong have found other facts of this bacterium, which can be used as a tool to store data information.

The research team managed to find a way to encrypt and store data-kan in E. coli DNA. One gram of bacteria can store up to 4.502 million Gigabyte information in their DNA.

BioStorage, which means the storage of data in living things, is actually not something new, because it has been known since about ten years ago. But the efforts of the experts lately more and expand the possible uses of this BioStorage. For example a team of researchers from Japan about 3 years ago managed-encode it relativity Einstein's equations into bacterial DNA. It is proved that humans could use bacteria as a data storage medium that is efficient, given the relatively very easy for bacteria bred. In addition, it is known that some bacteria were able to survive in extreme conditions.

Meanwhile, a team of researchers from Hong Kong was able to prove that the type of data that is stored not only in the form of text data, but even images, music, and videos can be stored either in DNA bakteri.Tim these researchers managed to put together equipment that can compress data and then store it in a number of cells and mapping the position of the data in the cells used, so it can be used when needed. Furthermore, they even have developed a three-tier security data system to prevent "hackers" disrupt the system.

This Hongkong student team is working to develop their technique to encode extra information of an organism that can genetically modify a plant and draw up a sort of "Bio Barcode" to identify these plants are expected later can be used to track and control the spread of plant- these plants.