Robust Data Storage Inspired by Oligopeptides

Innovation: Academia

Harvard

2019

Image: Ashley Knedler / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Chemically Assemble Polymers

We might think that complex polymers are the result of human industrial ingenuity, but nature cornered the market on polymers billions of years earlier. Examples of biopolymers are proteins, carbohydrates, and genetic material. In contrast to human industrial processes, within a cell, ribosomes covalently bond amino acids together to form proteins.

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Learn

Living systems obtain information from their environment and use it to find mates and resources, and to escape threats. Some reactions to gathered information are instinctual or innate behaviors, not based on previous experiences. But other reactions are based on previous experiences, which means that, at some level, the living system is learning. Learning can involve a living system passing information to another living system, or a living system obtaining information and using it in a feedback loop. That information can include knowledge, experience, behavior, and skills. Learning takes place when information that is new to the recipient is used to modify existing behavior or skills. The making and use of tools by some species of birds and mammals is a learned behavior. If a chimpanzee uses a stick to successfully get ants out of an ant mound and continues to do so, it has learned that behavior. If another chimpanzee observes this technique and replicates it, it has learned from the first chimp.

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Encode/Decode

Organisms are constantly taking in new information, processing it, and storing that information as memories. Sensory information and stimuli such as sounds, smell, time, and spatial organization are encoded along with our memories. Whether we’re learning a new skill or repeating a task we’ve done before, we can easily call upon and decode that information when we need it.

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Data storage method from Harvard uses tiny oligopeptide molecules to safely store large amounts of data.

Benefits

Resilient
Reliable
Safer

Applications

Security systems
Computers

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 9: Industry Innovation & Infrastructure

Bioutilization

Oligopeptides

The Challenge

With mass amounts of data being developed everyday, there are increasing issues with finding enough space to store it. Even the data storage cloud will eventually reach its capacity. Additionally, there is a risk that data could be hacked or corrupted while stored.

Innovation Details

The data storage method consists of small, low molecular weight molecules called oligopeptides, encoded with information. Binary information is stored on the oligopeptides that are mixed and stored on metal surfaces. Each oligopeptide has a slightly different mass depending on the amino acids they are made up of. When the information needs to be used, the molecules are sorted by mass in the well of a mass spectrometer. The research team has found that a mix of eight oligopeptides can store one byte of information, meaning the contents of an entire library could be stored in a single teaspoon of oligopeptides.

Biomimicry Story

Oligopeptides are short chains of monomers (typically two to forty monomers) linked via bonds. They are incredibly stable and able to endure many extreme environments such as high heat or drought. Oligopeptides are the building blocks of s in the body.

References

Journal article

Storage of Information Using Small Organic Molecules

ACS Publications

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