Grant: Canada Research Chairs

The rapid proliferation of cloud computing and the emergence of big data for scientific, financial, governmental, and genetic records is creating an information storage crisis. While innovations in information density, stability, and energy consumption continue, memory materials are approaching their limit. For example, global memory demand is predicted to eclipse the projected silicon supply by 2040. As an emerging memory material, DNA has a retention time that ranges from thousands to millions of years; 1 kg of DNA can store the projected digital universe in 2040, and DNA’s energy of operation is 100 million times less than state-of-the-art memory materials. As the Canada Research Chair – Tier 1 in DNA Nanotechnology, my vision is to generate a new storage paradigm where digital information is archived/read in DNA in multiple dimensions that include space, time, and sequence. Inspired by my work in DNA circuits and state-of-the-art optical physics, this research program is novel as it does not require primers, enzymes, thermal cycling, or sequencing. In addition, the number of DNA strands are significantly reduced when compared to sequencing. And finally, data readout is non-destructive, information storage can be isolated from reading the data, and physical/algorithmic encryption are both possible. As steps towards this vision, 4 objectives will be pursued: 1) Engineer deep learning and neural network-based localization methods to read nucleic acid memory with a sub-5 nm lateral and sub-1 nm axial data density with error correction, 2) Design, build, and test a time-correlated super-resolution microscope that integrates DNA-PAINT and fluorescence lifetime microscopy to record interactions between imager probes and their sequence complement in multiple dimensions, 3) Create imager probes that are ultra-short and quasi-stable. This is important to maximize the bits per data strand that can be encoded/read in time-correlated super-resolution microscopy, 4) Optimize DNA sequences to have uniform kinetic performance. As a proof of concept, my 2D prototype has a storage density of 1000 Gbit/cm^2. For context, the areal density of magnetic tape, the gold standard, is only 50 Gbit/cm^2. By expanding my technology in the third dimension, 10000 Gbit/cm^2 is possible. Upon success, improved metrology techniques will emerge with a super resolution of 5X5X1 nm/bit. A real-time, massively-parallel, single-molecule sequencing technology becomes possible.