Thread by @erlichya

Exciting!
Our new @NatureBiotech manuscript on "The DNA of thing" nature.com/articles/s4158… with my colleague Robert Grass and his team at @ETH_en!

What's all about 🤔?
A thread!
👇👇👇

The selling point of DNA Storage was focused on two advantages over traditional storage architectures: (a) it 3-4 orders of magnitude denser than traditional storage (b) it can last for centuries. Cool, but well known.

Our new study reports another advantage of DNA Storage!

All traditional storage technologies have invariant geometries. A disk called a disk because it has the shape of a disk. A tape has the shape of ...a tape. Hard drives are... hard.

So shape and data are disconnected in traditional storage.

DNA Storage is the only architecture where shape doesn't play any role (it is in 'liquid state' loosely speaking).

Based on this observation, we developed a method to embed DNA into polymers, which can then be casted into any form.

Example: This is not your regular 3D bunny.

We used our "DNA of things" architecture to store the 3D printing file (stl file) of the bunny in DNA. Then, we took the DNA, encapsulated it in silica beads, mixed the beads with PCL plastic, extruded, and printed the bunny.

The end result?

A bunny that holds its own blue-print on it (🧬+🐇)!

We extracted the DNA from the bunny ear, iSeq the library, and printed a new bunny from the old one. We also PCR amplified the DNA and embedded in the new bunny, so it can be replicated as well. And repeated the process!

Also, you see these glasses. The left lens conceal a two minute YouTube movie using the "DNA of Things". So it is also a great method to hide information in common objects (next time you need to store information that no one can find).

As a side note, the YouTube movie is about the Oneg Shabbat archive, which is part @UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Jews hid this archive in milk cans during the holocaust.

So what the DNA of things is good for?

1. Store blue prints on objects. Why not put EMRs and specifications on medical implants or even dental crowns? How about putting manufacturing instructions on objects (car bumpers) so next time they break we can easily fix them?

2. Hide information. James Bond style. Since silica beads are biocompatible you can theoretically drink them and urinate the files in the other side of the boarder (don't try at home!).

3. Research in self replicating objects. Well that's is much more futuristic. But one necessary (but totally insufficient) condition for such robots is to be able to replicate their blue print. Our approach helps a little bit.

But maybe more importantly, the DNA of Things is an application where current DNA synthesis is not overly cost prohibitive for. So our hope it will help to drive DNA Storage forward!

Final notes: I did this work with the Grass lab as an independent scientist, unaffiliated from @MyHeritage. All code and data are publicly available (see manuscript).

Thanks for bearing with me!!!

@MyHeritage And before you go... a great movie by @RobertGrass17 on the steps in making the bunny and retrieving information: