Synthetic DNA as Mass Data Storage of the Future

Opportunity for resource-efficient, space-saving long-term archiving of data

07-May-2025 - Traditional storage solutions are reaching their limits in light of the steadily increasing volume of data generated worldwide. In the BIOSYNTH project, three Fraunhofer institutes are developing a microchip platform for future mass data storage using synthetic DNA. In this interview, Dr. Uwe ...

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life

For the first time, scientists have developed artificial nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, with several additional properties in the laboratory

12-Mar-2024 - The DNA carries the genetic information of all living organisms and consists of only four different building blocks, the nucleotides. Nucleotides are composed of three distinctive parts: a sugar molecule, a phosphate group and one of the four nucleobases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. ...

Researchers design a pulsing nanomotor

Machine measures just one ten-thousandth of a millimeter: An alphabet soup serves as fuel

23-Oct-2023 - An international team of scientists headed by the University of Bonn has developed a novel type of nanomotor. It is driven by a clever mechanism and can perform pulsing movements. The researchers are now planning to fit it with a coupling and install it as a drive in complex machines. Their ...

Artificial intelligence folds RNA molecules

New structures reliably predictable

12-Jul-2022 - The spatial structure of RNA molecules is crucial for their function. But predicting it is a challenge. For the function of many biomolecules, their three-dimensional structure is crucial. Researchers are therefore not only interested in the sequence of the individual building blocks of ...

Crystal study may resolve DNA mystery

Rice lab captures unseen details of replication, clues to how mutations can happen

12-May-2022 - When cells reproduce, the internal mechanisms that copy DNA get it right nearly every time. Rice University bioscientists have uncovered a tiny detail that helps understand how the process could go wrong. Their study of enzymes revealed the presence of a central metal ion critical toDNA ...

New method to produce chemically modified mRNA developed

Chemists describes a new synthetically produced, highly modified messenger RNA that allows cells to more efficiently produce proteins

07-Mar-2022 - In a recent study, the research group at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Organic Chemistry led by Professor Dr Stephanie Kath-Schorr describes a novel method for the enzymatic production of synthetic messenger RNA (mRNA). While natural base modifications of mRNA are already being used – ...

FLAM-seq: the full picture of messenger RNA and their tails

19-Aug-2019 - Researchers in MDC’sBerlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology(BIMSB)have developed atoolenablingaccurate sequencing ofmessenger RNA along withtheirtails for the first time.ProfessorNikolausRajewskyand his team described this new tool, called full-length poly(A) and mRNA ...

'Semi-synthetic' bacteria churn out unnatural proteins

19-Jul-2019 - Synthetic biologists seek to create new life with forms and functions not seen in nature. Although scientists are a long way from making a completely artificial life form, they have made semi-synthetic organisms that have an expanded genetic code, allowing them to produce never-before-seen ...

It's all in the code

Protein production efficiency can be predicted by gene sequence

06-Feb-2019 - Today, thousands of databases with biological data are publicly available. They include data on gene and protein sequences and detailed measurements of different cellular parameters, such as the exact quantities of all proteins produced and degraded by a given cell in various experimental ...

An errant editing enzyme promotes tumor suppressor loss and leukemia propagation

08-Jan-2019 - Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that detection of "copy editing" by a stem cell enzyme called ADAR1, which is active in more than 20 tumor types, may provide a kind of molecular radar for early detection of malignancies and represent a new therapeutic ...