The biggest medical breakthrough of the past few decades is almost certainly CRISPR, the groundbreaking gene-editing tech that enables scientists to add or remove genes with incredible precision. It has the potential to cure disease, create designer babies, and even exterminate entire species.
But one possible use for CRISPR is easier to overlook, and that is its potential for storing information in DNA.
DNA is the best storage mechanism in the world. The entire blueprint for our species is stored inside the center of almost every single one of our cells, and the complete collection of all the world's written works can be encoded onto only a few pounds of the stuff. Plus, DNA is durable and can last a very long time with little degradation.
CRISPR makes it easy to edit existing DNA or add new DNA anywhere in the genome. This makes it ideal for writing new information, and a group of Harvard researchers did just that, encoding an image and a short video clip using the technology.
Storing data on DNA is not a new idea, but using CRISPR to do it could dramatically simplify the process. More importantly, CRISPR lets scientists store data on the DNA inside living organisms, instead of just disembodied DNA floating inside a tube.
This opens up brand new opportunities, not just in data storage but also in exploration and discovery. If we can use DNA to store information, we could also use it to record information, meaning we can use CRISPR to turn cells into tiny records of what they're doing and what's happening to them. Using CRISPR, we can better understand how different cells and organisms operate or develop.