Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/2.2.7

Check out our FACEBOOK page!

CH2.2.7 - INFORMATION PROCESSING

Example:

Bioencryption and Bacteria USB:
Data encryption is weakened due to the advance in mathematics, and we need larger storage size in a smaller device.

Similar to binary number system (0 and 1) in the electronic devices, the basic DNA code (A, T, C, G) in bacteria can be used as a quaternary number system to convert message for storage, and in this case, ‘Hi’ is converted into DNA code ‘TCCATCCT’ for the storage in genome of DNA. As for the encryption system, a built-in (intrinsic) system is self-synthesized enzyme that recognizes specific DNA sequence to encrypt the messages in bacteria.

Bacteria have a much larger capacity of storage than electronic data storage. The storage capacity of 1 g of living bacteria, E. coli, is equivalent to 450 hard drives with the capacity of 2 TB, given that 1 g of hard disk carries 1 to 4 GB only. Electronic data can hardly be repaired when the storage components are damaged, but bacterial storage is a living system which can better maintain the data integrity. Bacteria can replicate extensively to give abundant copies of the information. Therefore, one does not need to worry about the data loss even when some of them are dead.

Source: https://2010.igem.org/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK

BACK TO CONTENT

Home   |   Team   |   Project   |   Biobricks   |   Human Practice   |   Safety   |   Documentation   |   Acknowledgement

Address: Rm. 184, Science Centre, CUHK
Email: kingchan@cuhk.edu.hk  Tel: (852)-39434420  Fax: (852)-26037246