Category: DNA

As the modern world produces ever more data, researchers are scrambling to find new ways to store it all. DNAholds promise as an extremely compact and stable storage medium, and now a new approach could let us write digital data directly into the genomes of living cells.

Efforts to repurpose nature’s built-in memory technology aren’t new, but in the last decade the approach has gained renewed interest and seen some major progress. That’s been driven by an explosion of data that shows no signs of slowing down. By 2025, it’s estimated that 463 exabytes will be created each day globally.

Storing all this data could quickly become impractical using conventional silicon technology, but DNA could hold the answer. For a start, its information density is millions of times better than conventional hard drives, with a single gram of DNA able to store up to 215 million gigabytes.

Continue reading… “New Research Could Enable Direct Data Transfer From Computers to Living Cells”

University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers in the Department of Chemistry have created a new polymer to deliver DNA and RNA-based therapies for diseases. For the first time in the industry, the researchers were able to see exactly how polymers interact with human cells when delivering medicines into the body. This discovery opens the door for more widespread use of polymers in applications like gene therapy and vaccine development.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal.

Gene therapy involves altering the genes inside the body’s cells to treat or cure diseases. It requires a carrier that “packages” the DNA to deliver it into the cell—oftentimes, a virus is used as a carrier. Packaging of nucleic acids is also used in vaccines, such as the recently developed messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, which is enclosed in a lipid.

The research team is led by chemistry professor Theresa Reineke and associate professor Renee Frontiera. Reineke’s lab synthesizes polymers, which are long-chain molecules that make up plastics, to use for packaging the nucleic acids instead.

“It’s kind of like ordering something from Amazon, and it’s shipped in a box,” Reineke explained. “Things get broken if they’re not delivered in a package. That’s basically what we’re doing here but on a nano-level. We’re taking these really sensitive RNA and DNA cargo that are susceptible to enzymatic degradation, that won’t get to their target unless you have something to protect them.”

Continue reading… “Researchers discover new way to deliver DNA-based therapies for diseases”

by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists developed the world’s first mobile genome sequence analyzer, a new iPhone app called iGenomics. By pairing an iPhone with a handheld DNA sequencer, users can create a mobile genetics laboratory, reminiscent of the “tricorder” featured in Star Trek. The iGenomics app runs entirely on the iOS device, reducing the need for laptops or large equipment in the field, which is useful for pandemic and ecology workers. Aspyn Palatnick programmed iGenomics in CSHL Adjunct Associate Professor Michael Schatz’s laboratory, over a period of eight years, starting when he was a 14-year-old high school intern.

The iPhone app was developed to complement the tiny DNA sequencing devices being made by Oxford Nanopore. Palatnick, now a software engineer at Facebook, was already experienced at building iPhone apps when joining the Schatz laboratory. He and Schatz realized that:

“As the sequencers continued to get even smaller, there were no technologies available to let you study that DNA on a mobile device. Most of the studying of DNA: aligning, analyzing, is done on large server clusters or high-end laptops.”

Schatz recognized that scientists studying pandemics were “flying in suitcases full of Nanopores and laptops and other servers to do that analysis in the remote fields.” iGenomics helps by making genome studies more portable, accessible, and affordable.

Continue reading… “The world’s first DNA ‘tricorder’ in your pocket”