Image storage onto synthetic DNA

Living in the age of data explosion, the research of solutions for efficient long term storage of the infrequently used ”cold” data is becoming of great interest. However, even if existing storage systems suggest efficiency in capacity, they are lacking in durability. Hard disks, flash, tape or even optical storage have limited lifespan in the range of 5 to 20 years. Interestingly, recent studies have proven that due to its biological properties, the DNA is a strong candidate for the storage of digital information allowing also data longevity. The DNA’s biological properties allows the storage of a great amount of information into an extraordinary small volume while also promising efficient storage for centuries or even longer with no loss of information. However, the biological procedures of DNA synthesis and sequencing are expensive while also introducing important restrictions in the encoding process. More precisely the encoding of digital data onto DNA is not obvious, because when decoding, we have to face the problem of sequencing noise robustness. This work proposes a coding solution for the storage of digital images onto synthetic DNA. We developed a new encoding algorithm which generates a DNA code robust to biological errors coming from the synthesis and the sequencing processes. Furthermore, we compare this new algorithm to the state of the art encoding techniques analyzing the advantages of using the proposed method.