Taking cells out to the movies with new CRISPR technology
Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - 12:02
in Biology & Nature
Researchers are developing ways to harness DNA, the blueprint of biological life, as a synthetic raw material to store large amounts of digital information outside of living cells, using expensive machinery. But, what if they could coerce living cells, like large populations of bacteria, into using their own genomes as a biological hard drive that can be used to record information and then be tapped for it anytime? Such an approach could not only open entirely new possibilities of data storage, but also be engineered further into an effective memory device that may be able to record the molecular experiences cells are having during their development, or exposure to stresses and pathogens in a chronological fashion.