Authored by Mikaelle de Oliveira
We normally think of DNA as the thing carrying the instructions for life, sitting inside our cells and helping determine how our bodies work. It’s probably not the first thing you’d expect to find in a piece of computer hardware, unless your biology teacher had a particularly ambitious lesson plan.
Now, researchers at Penn State are asking whether DNA could have another job entirely: helping computers store information. They’ve developed a small memory device that combines synthetic DNA with a semiconductor called perovskite, and the results show that biology could have a place in future electronics.
It’s still a long way from completely replacing the storage in your laptop, but it’s a pretty strange idea to get your head around.
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Why Are Scientists Putting DNA Into Computers?
DNA and computer hardware seem like they should stay in completely separate worlds. One is associated with genetics and the other with processors, storage drives and the collection of cables behind your desk that nobody wants to untangle.
The reason scientists are interested in DNA is its insane ability to hold information in a very small space. Penn State researchers says a single gram of DNA could theoretically hold about 215 million gigabytes of data.
The challenge is working out how to make DNA useful in an electronic device. Rather than trying to replace a computer drive with DNA, the researchers have been experimenting with how synthetic DNA can work alongside other materials to create a new type of memory.
So How Does DNA Become Computer Memory?
The researchers used short pieces of synthetic DNA that were specially designed for the experiment, rather than taking DNA from a living person. They added tiny silver particles to the DNA and combined it with a thin layer of perovskite, a material that has also attracted attention for its potential in solar technology.
Together, these materials form a device called a memristor. The name sounds more complicated than the basic idea, which is that the device can change between different electrical states and remember which state it was in.
That means it can store information rather than simply allowing electricity to pass through it. The researchers found that their device could operate using less than 0.1 volts and could keep its memory behaviour for more than six weeks under normal room conditions. It also continued working at temperatures approaching 250 degrees Fahrenheit or 121 degrees Celsius.
DNA isn’t being used because scientists think computers should become biological. Instead, its structure can help the electronic materials behave in useful ways.
Could DNA Actually Make Computers More Efficient?
The Penn State team says its device uses 100 times less power than traditional storage devices while providing higher storage capacity. The researchers are interested in the technology for future electronics that need to handle large amounts of information without using a huge amount of energy.
That doesn’t mean a DNA memory stick is about to replace your SSD. The device is still a prototype, and there are plenty of practical questions before anything like this could become part of everyday technology.
For data centres and other large computing systems, where thousands of devices can be running at the same time, reducing the amount of electricity each one needs could add up quickly. As computers continue handling more data, finding ways to make memory use less energy could be as important as making the hardware faster.
Could Biology Change How We Build Computers?
For decades, improving computers has meant making electronic components smaller, faster and more efficient. Researchers are now looking at whether different materials could help push things further, especially as the amount of data computers need to handle keeps growing.
The Penn State device doesn’t prove that DNA will replace silicon, and it definitely doesn’t mean our laptops are about to become miniature biology experiments. What it does show, however, is that synthetic DNA can be combined with electronic materials to create a working memory device with some unusual properties. It also shows that there’s still a lot modern technology can learn from biology.
There’s still a lot to figure out before this could become useful outside a laboratory, but I like the fact that the researchers aren’t trying to make the same old computer hardware a little faster. They’re looking somewhere completely different for the answer.
We’ve spent so long teaching computers to imitate parts of the human brain, so it was just a matter of time before we started taking a few ideas from biology too. Turns out, it may be that DNA could be in for quite the career change.
