There has been a bit of work using DNA as a data storage medium or even as a computation engine. These experiments generally use isolated DNA in a solution, i.e., not inside an actual organism.
This winter researchers at Columbia have demonstrated data storage inside living cells! [2]
Wow!
The idea is to use CRISPR technology to insert coded data into the DNA of a microbe, and to read it back later by sequencing the DNA.
The idea is to encode electric signals on living DNA, analogous to writing data to magnetic tape. The DNA isn’t rewritten, it acts as the storage medium.
This is real Buck Rogers stuff! Talk about secret, hidden memories!
This sets off our imagination.
We can imagine that this could be combined with nanobots, to interface directly between DNA data and a human nervous system. I.e., the data is read out by a little nanobot, which then replays it by stimulating a nerve. The person can feel a tickle or sounds or flashing dots; or who knows how it should be delivered.
It’s the plot of a thriller!
Secret data is stolen, hidden in bacterial DNA. A human is infected with the bacteria, and carries the contraband undetected. At home, the bacteria is recovered (with a swab?), isolated and sequenced.
Or perhaps Wikileaks could be encoded in harmless bacteria, and then spread to the wind, multiplying and spreading in an information pandemic. Anyone can read the secrets from their own bacteria. The only way to stop the publication is to kill all the bacteria in the world—good luck with that!
The idea of a ‘viral’ meme becomes literal!
This ‘broadcasting’ example give us an idea of a great weakness of this technology: there is little way to control the multiplication and spread of the microbes, and so it is really difficult to restrict the information. For that matter, there is little way to delete information. Once it is written, the bugs start multiplying and spreading.
The idea of data ‘wanting to be free’ becomes literal, too! Microbes are gonna do what microbes do.
Sure, you can try to keep the microbes confined. Biocontainment is hard, and the resulting container would be pretty inconvenient.
In a way, this is kind of like Nakamotoan blockchain: a write-only, uncontrolled public storage. At some point, someone will replicate a blockchain in living DNA.
- Layal Liverpool, CRISPR gene editing used to store data in DNA inside living cells, in New Scientist, January 11, 2021. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2264383-crispr-gene-editing-used-to-store-data-in-dna-inside-living-cells/
- Sung Sun Yim, Ross M. McBee, Alan M. Song, Yiming Huang, Ravi U. Sheth, and Harris H. Wang, Robust direct digital-to-biological data storage in living cells. Nature Chemical Biology, 2021/01/11 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-00711-4
Robert McGrath's Blog 