DNA as Data Storage with Vijay Pande

Therapeutics

DNA's potential in therapeutics is vast, with its compatibility with biological systems offering exciting possibilities. Vijay Pande highlights how DNA's structure allows it to function as a storage medium, potentially enabling new types of therapeutics that utilize DNA for simple computational tasks. This compatibility with our bodies could lead to innovative biological computing systems, akin to early computer developments, that grow in complexity over time 1.

Biology has had a huge storage problem on its own. The fact that you look out the world with trees and people and birds and so on, there's tons and tons of bits there and bites all over the place that's been there for millions of years.

--- Vijay Pande

Additionally, the challenges in DNA sequencing and synthesis are being addressed by researchers and companies, with synthetic biology operations relying heavily on advancements in writing DNA 2.

   

Computing

The computing potential of DNA is a fascinating frontier, with its natural error correction and stability making it a promising medium. Vijay Pande explains that DNA's structure, with its four-base possibilities, allows for encoding two bits per base, offering a robust storage solution. This inherent stability and error correction, akin to a double helix's complementary structure, makes DNA a compelling candidate for biological computing 1.

DNA is like a long molecule, like a single rope, and it's comprised of DNA bases. And each base could be one of four possibilities.

--- Vijay Pande

The potential for DNA to solve biological storage problems, similar to those faced in computing, underscores its significance in future technological advancements.