DNA Storage and Computation Seminar

DNA is an extraordinarily dense and durable medium for storing information, raising the possibility that it could one day complement or even replace conventional technologies for long-term archival storage. Recent experimental demonstrations, together with continuing advances in DNA synthesis and sequencing, have brought this possibility closer to reality. Yet significant challenges remain before DNA storage can become practical at scale. This talk provides an accessible introduction to DNA-based data storage: how digital information is translated into DNA sequences, written into synthetic DNA molecules, stored, and later read and reconstructed. It reviews the major breakthroughs in the field, assesses the current state of the technology, and discusses its most promising applications and likely directions of development. It then examines several fundamental algorithmic and coding-theoretic problems that arise in DNA storage. These include coping with insertions, deletions, and substitutions; reconstructing information from many noisy copies of the same sequence, and organizing and reliably retrieving data from very large collections of DNA molecules. Together, these challenges illustrate both the remarkable potential of DNA as a storage medium and the advances still required before it can become a competitive archival technology.