I saw on the science instagram that Harvard scientists were able to encode a video of a horse running onto DNA that was put inside a living bacteria. Then they retrieved said video at 90% accuracy. What does this mean and how is this possible?
In: Biology
Computer code, at its most basic, is a line of 1s and 0s. DNA, at its most basic, is a line of bases (As, Ts, Cs, and Gs).
The scientists decided on a conversion (in a simple conversion, maybe A/T = 1 and C/G = 0), then converted the computer code over to DNA code. They then put this DNA into a living bacteria. Later, they pulled it back out and coverted the DNA code back into computer code. This code was still about 90% correct afterward.
As far as i know, there’s no pressing need for this technology (though it’s not my area of interest, so I could easily have missed something), but being able to do this reliably could allow us to store information as DNA, or it could help if we ever get to the point in genetic engineering where we want to create long custom strings of DNA instead of splicing a bunch of strands together.
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