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. 2016 Apr;15(4):366-70.
doi: 10.1038/nmat4594.

Nucleic acid memory

Victor Zhirnov  1 , Reza M Zadegan  2 , Gurtej S Sandhu  3 , George M Church  4 , William L Hughes  2
Affiliations

Nucleic acid memory

Victor Zhirnov et al. Nat Mater. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

Nucleic acid memory has a retention time far exceeding electronic memory. As an alternative storage media, DNA surpasses the information density and energy of operation offered by flash memory.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing financial interests

W.L.H. and R.M.Z have received financial support to explore NAM technologies from the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the Function Accelerated nanomaterial Engineering Research Center, and from the Micron Foundation. G.M.C has patents licensed to Oxford Nanopore Technologies, equity in Genia-Roche for nanopore sequencing, financial involvement in multiple next-generation sequencing and synthesis companies, and financial support from Technicolor on DNA-storage technologies.

Figures

Figure 1 |
Figure 1 |
Change of storage needs over time. a, Timeline of stored analogue, digital and total data (ref. 48) where the percentage values refer to the fraction of stored digital data. b, Projected global memory demand. Actual (filled circles: i, ref. ; ii, ref. ; iii, ref. 51) and projected (open circles; iv, ref. ; v, ref. 52) data points fall between the conservative estimate and the upper bound. See also Supplementary Information section 1.
Figure 2 |
Figure 2 |
Mechanism of NAM information degradation by hydrolysis. a, Simulated model of a single-stranded DNA molecule in an aqueous environment. b, Illustrated mechanisms of depurination (red crosses in place of DNA bases), backbone cleavage (red cross in the DNA backbone), and point mutations resulting from deoxycytidine deamination (red crosses next to DNA bases).
Figure 3 |
Figure 3 |
Generic barrier models and memory retention. a, Schematic of a generic barrier model for memory devices, consisting of a storage node with information-bearing particles ‘protected’ by a barrier. Eb, energy-barrier height. b, A similar barrier model is used in chemical kinetics applied to chemical reactions. c, Summary of calculated memory-retention times for DNA and NAND flash memory in both air and water.
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