Breaking the DNA Storage Bottleneck: Chinese Scientists Leverage Movable Type Printing to Develop "DNA Movable Type Storage" Technology and the "Bisheng I" Printer

Breaking the DNA Storage Bottleneck: Chinese Scientists Leverage Movable Type Printing to Develop "DNA Movable Type Storage" Technology and the "Bisheng I" PrinterA team of Chinese scientists has successfully developed a cost-effective DNA movable type storage technology and created an automated device, the "Bisheng I" DNA movable type inkjet printer, offering a novel solution to the ever-growing data storage demands. This breakthrough draws inspiration from movable type printing, one of China's four great inventions, effectively overcoming the high cost and low efficiency bottlenecks of existing DNA storage technologies

Breaking the DNA Storage Bottleneck: Chinese Scientists Leverage Movable Type Printing to Develop "DNA Movable Type Storage" Technology and the "Bisheng I" Printer

• A team of Chinese scientists has successfully developed a cost-effective DNA movable type storage technology and created an automated device, the "Bisheng I" DNA movable type inkjet printer, offering a novel solution to the ever-growing data storage demands. This breakthrough draws inspiration from movable type printing, one of China's four great inventions, effectively overcoming the high cost and low efficiency bottlenecks of existing DNA storage technologies. The research findings have been published as a cover article in the prestigious international journal Advanced Science.

Currently, traditional silicon-based storage media, such as hard drives, magnetic tapes, and USB drives, face numerous challenges. They have limited lifespans, high energy consumption, and a large footprint, struggling to meet the explosively growing data storage needs. In contrast, DNA, a natural bio-information storage material, boasts significant advantages, including high density, long lifespan, and low energy consumption, making it an ideal alternative for addressing big data storage challenges. However, current DNA data storage technologies mostly employ strategies similar to woodblock printing, requiring the resynthesis of DNA molecules for each storage instance, resulting in high costs and long processing times, severely limiting large-scale applications.

To overcome this bottleneck, teams from the Beijing Genomics Institute (National Genomics Data Center), Chinese Academy of Sciences (led by Chen Fei), the Institute of Computing Technology (led by Tan Guangming and Bu Dongbo), and the Western Institute of Computing Technology (led by Duan Bo) cleverly adopted the concept of ancient Chinese movable type printing, proposing a novel DNA movable type storage design.

The core of this technology lies in "DNA movable type." Each DNA movable type is a short double-stranded DNA fragment composed of 20 nucleotides (nt), encoding 1 byte of computer data information, including text, addresses, or checksum data. Each DNA movable type fragment has four-nucleotide sticky ends at both ends, allowing efficient concatenation into larger DNA movable type blocks through a one-step multi-enzyme ligation technique.

• These DNA movable type blocks can be cloned into plasmids for in vitro storage or transformed into E. coli for in vivo storage, significantly improving storage efficiency and stability. This design strategy significantly increases the reuse rate of DNA fragments, effectively reducing storage costs and time.

To further enhance the efficiency and automation of DNA movable type storage technology, the research team also developed the "Bisheng I" DNA movable type inkjet printer. This printer enables high-throughput printing and writing of DNA movable type and decodes various types of computer data storage files, including text, images, audio, and video, with 100% accuracy. This marks a crucial step towards the practical application of DNA movable type storage technology.

The successful development of "Bisheng I" solves the problem of automated writing in DNA movable type storage technology, breaking the speed bottleneck of existing DNA synthesis technology, and greatly promoting the industrial application of DNA storage technology. The emergence of "Bisheng I" will significantly reduce the cost and greatly improve the storage efficiency of DNA storage technology, making it more competitive.

In summary, the successful development of this DNA movable type storage technology, based on the concept of movable type printing, and its automated device, "Bisheng I," provides a new paradigm for the future development of DNA data storage technology. It not only overcomes the high cost and low efficiency bottlenecks of existing DNA storage technologies, but also brings revolutionary changes to the field of big data storage. This breakthrough has significant scientific significance and broad application prospects, and is expected to be widely used in the future in various fields requiring long-term, secure, and high-density data storage, such as genome data storage, medical image storage, and other fields requiring long-term preservation of massive data.

This research achievement is significant not only for providing new technical approaches to solve the problem of big data storage, but also for demonstrating the strength of Chinese scientists in scientific and technological innovation. By drawing on traditional wisdom and combining it with modern technology, Chinese scientists have successfully overcome the bottlenecks of DNA storage technology, pointing the way for the future development of information storage technology. In the future, with further development and improvement of the technology, DNA movable type storage technology is expected to become one of the mainstream data storage technologies, fundamentally changing the way we store and manage data. The success of this technology also provides valuable experience and inspiration for technological innovation in other fields, namely, that the cross-disciplinary integration and reference to traditional wisdom in the process of technological innovation can often lead to breakthroughs. This is not only an inheritance and innovation of traditional wisdom, but also an important contribution to the future development of science and technology.

The significance of this technological breakthrough lies not only in the technology itself, but also in the innovative concept it represents. It embodies the spirit of Chinese scientists' courage to explore and innovate, and contributes Chinese wisdom to global scientific and technological development. In the future, as the technology matures and improves, it will be possible to apply this technology widely in various fields, making greater contributions to the informatization process of human society. At the same time, this technology provides a reference for technological innovation in other fields, allowing people to realize that interdisciplinary integration and reference to traditional wisdom in scientific research can often produce unexpected results. The publication of this research result will undoubtedly push the development of global DNA storage technology and contribute Chinese strength to solving the problem of big data storage.

This technology also brings infinite possibilities to our future lives. With the continuous growth of data volume, the demand for storage technology is also increasing. The maturity of DNA storage technology will be able to meet the needs of future society for massive data storage, providing strong support for the development of emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing. At the same time, the low energy consumption characteristics of DNA storage technology are also in line with the global concept of sustainable development, contributing to environmental protection. In short, this technological breakthrough has not only important scientific significance, but also great social and economic significance. It represents the direction of China's technological progress and brings new hope for the future development of mankind.

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