Down the Rabbit Hole of DOT

I'm a sucker for stories about new uses of DNA.  Talk about DNA for data storage, and I'm interested.   Start developing DNA-based "lifelike" mechanisms that could be used for robots, and I'm intrigued.  Use DNA for computing and I'm excited.  But 3D print a plastic bunny that includes DNA "blueprints" on how to 3D print itself, well, that's irresistible.

We talk a lot about the Internet-of-Things (IoT), but it may be time for the "DNA-of-Things" (DOT).

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and the Erlich Lab did just that, describing their efforts in a paper in Nature Biotechnology.  They translated the 3D printing instructions for the rabbit in a synthetic DNA sequence, encoded it onto tiny glass beads, and embedded those into the rabbit.  

Credit: ETH Zurich/Erlich Lab

 As one of the authors said: "Just like real rabbits, our rabbit also carries its own blueprint,"  Fittingly, the first 3D printed object that encodes itself is not just any generic rabbit, but, rather, the famous Stanford bunny, which has been widely used in computer graphics 3D testing for 25 years.  

As proof of concept, the researchers have replicated the bunny into the 5th generation using the encoded DNA.  One of the authors, Yaniv Erlich, says, presumably tongue-in-cheek: "Plus, you know, you pull rabbits out of the hat."  

We have to remember that DNA is not just a dense medium for data storage, it is potentially hyper-dense.  Each bunny, for example, carries 370 million copies of its instructions, and we're just getting started.  

Dr. Erlick tweeted:

All other known forms of storage have a fixed geometry: a hard drive has to look like a hard drive, a CD like a CD. You can't change the form without losing information.  DNA is currently the only data storage medium that can also exist as a liquid, which allows us to insert it into objects of any shape.

Here is a video of their process:

This is not just playing around.  The authors describe their efforts as a "'DNA-of-things’ (DoT) storage architecture to produce materials with immutable memory."  Drew Endy, a Stanford bioengineering professor, told IEEE Spectrum their work:

...is incredibly interesting from a cultural perspective.  Imagine a societal norm in which every object must encode the instructions for making the object.  Given the incredible information density of DNA data storage, such information could, in some commonplace objects such as refrigerators, also include a fully unabridged guide to rebuilding all of civilization.

Admittedly, the process is currently neither cheap nor easily available.  You need a DNA synthesizer and 3D printer, for example.  Even with the technology, the researchers figure replicating their first bunny cost about $2,500, with most of that cost in the synthesizing.  However, both technologies should radically come down in cost over the next few years.  The researchers hope to make DNA storage an "everyday technology."

We haven't really had time to imagine all the possibilities.  Sriram Kosuri of UCLA  told New Scientist: : "You can imagine a system where everything is tagged with small bits of useful information.  What’s cool about this work is that they show that is doable today, and it seems pretty reliable."  Calin Plesa of the University of Oregon added:  "Any potential application is still likely years away, but this study is certain to inspire creative uses we can’t predict right now,"

The researchers certainly believe that DNA-of-Things (DOT) has big potential.  They describe some possibilities:

DoT could be applied to store electronic health records in medical implants, to hide data in everyday objects (steganography) and to manufacture objects containing their own blueprint. It may also facilitate the development of self-replicating machines.

I'm particularly fascinated by the possible applications to healthcare -- some of which the authors explicitly mention.  Co-author Robert Glass explained that "this technology could be used to mark medications or construction materials...Information about their quality could be stored directly in the medication or material itself. This means medical supervisory authorities could read test results from production quality control directly from the product."

Credit: Shannon May/The Scientist

Similarly, Discover Magazine reports "the research team thinks this technique could be well-suited for even smaller devices, like medical implants. A patient's dental history could be compacted into their tooth filling, for example." 

Professor Erlich has suggested the idea of "DNA-aware homes—faucets that test for harmful pathogens and toilets that report back on the health of their users’ gut microbiome."  

I speculated three years ago about using DNA storage to become our own medical records, and the bunny suggests that the idea is now not so far-fetched. 

Sixty years after its discovery, we're starting to meaningfully interpret and use DNA.  Thirty-five years after its invention we're finding more and more ways to use 3D printing.  But the ETH Zurich/Erich Lab research points to a future that changes how we think of both, as well as our concepts of data storage and perhaps even data itself. 

We're just starting to explore the possibilities of Internet-of-Things, and now DOT comes along to radically expand what IoT can do and how it can do it.  Healthcare is not going to be the only aspect of our lives that is likely to be impacted by DOT, but it is going to be one of them.  

Like bunnies, uses for DOT are only going to multiply.