DNA Data Storage: Fundamentals and Challenges

The rapid growth of global digital data is creating unprecedented demands on storage infrastructure. Conventional storage technologies such as magnetic disks and solid-state drives face significant limitations in storage density, durability, and long-term energy consumption. DNA data storage has emerged as a promising alternative for long-term archival storage due to DNA’s extraordinary information density, longevity, and stability. By encoding digital information into synthetic DNA sequences, it is theoretically possible to store vast amounts of data in extremely small physical volumes while maintaining durability for hundreds or even thousands of years.
This presentation introduces the fundamental principles of DNA data storage systems, including digital-to-DNA encoding, DNA synthesis, molecular storage, sequencing-based data retrieval, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)-based random access, and data decoding. The DNA storage channel, which models the synthesis, storage, and sequencing processes, is also discussed. Finally, the presentation highlights several key challenges that must be addressed to make DNA data storage practical, including countering channel and system-level errors, designing efficient PCR-based primer libraries for reliable random access, improving read and write throughput, and enabling efficient data update mechanisms.

Mar 13, 2026 3:30 PM — 4:30 PM

Bilkent University - Graduate Research Seminar