杏吧原创

You put data into plants. Why?
I was annoyed about the amount of disc space on my computer. I started wondering, what if I could store data in DNA? It鈥檚 such an immense reservoir of potential storage 鈥� 1 gram of it could store over 450 x 10¹⁸ bytes. All of the archives in the world could be stored in one box of seeds.

What was your first challenge?
Together with colleagues, we inserted a simple computer program called 鈥淗ello World鈥� into a tobacco plant鈥檚 DNA.

How do you put computer code into DNA?
First you need a coding system. A computer program is basically a sequence of 0s and 1s, so we transformed this into the four DNA 鈥渓etters鈥� 鈥� A, G, C and T 鈥� by turning 00 into A, 10 into C, 01 into G and 11 into T. Then we synthesised the resulting DNA sequence. We transferred this artificial DNA into a bacterium and infected the leaf of a tobacco plant with it. The bacterium transfers this artificial DNA into the plant.

What happens to the data once placed inside the plant?
We took a cutting of the infected leaf, planted it, and grew a full tobacco plant from it. This is essentially cloning, so all the leaves of this new plant, and its seeds, contained the 鈥淗ello World鈥� program encoded in their DNA.

How do you retrieve the data?
It鈥檚 not hard. You extract the plant鈥檚 DNA and sequence it using standard methods. We reconstructed the program from the resulting tobacco seedlings with complete accuracy: the message 鈥淗ello World鈥� popped up on our computer screen.

This sort of data extraction means the destruction of some leaf material, but handheld technology is already in development that will one day enable us to read a leaf鈥檚 DNA directly, with virtually no damage.

So one day we鈥檒l be able to browse Wikipedia from a plant?
Absolutely, with the appropriate interface 鈥� though in that scenario you would not be able to edit any entries, because data stored in DNA is read-only. That鈥檚 why it would ultimately be better suited to archiving.

How long can data stored in seeds last?
Inside the global seed vault they can be frozen and last for millennia 鈥� there鈥檚 no limit. They even have their germination ability preserved.

What future do you see for this technology?
Imagine walking through a park that is actually a library, every plant, flower and shrub full of archived information. You sit down on a bench, touch your handheld DNA reader to a leaf and listen to the Rolling Stones directly from it, or choose a novel or watch a documentary amid the greenery.

A simple tree could provide all the educational data a child anywhere in the world could need. That was my inspiration.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚 plant memories in seeds鈥�