A couple of years back, even researchers would wave off using DNA to store data as something too futuristic to have any practical value. Today, you can extend PostgreSQL with the right software and bio-chemical modules, and run SQL on DNA.

You probably don’t want to see any more factoids about how much data the world generates every day. We certainly don’t. Let’s just agree that the data frenzy in the world today is outpacing not just our ability to comprehend numbers and qualifiers – Zettabytes, anyone? – but also our capacity to store it.

Everything is going digital, and everything is increasingly ran on applications based on algorithms trained on data, which in turn generate more data to feed more downstream applications and algorithms..you get the picture.

Simply put, at this pace, there soon won’t be enough data storage and compute material to go by. Which is why people have been looking into alternative storage media for data for a while now. Using DNA to store data, strange as it may sound at first, actually makes lots of sense. And now researchers have made a breakthrough, enabling them to integrate DNA storage in PostgreSQL, a popular open source database.

At its core, DNA is a data storage layer. DNA is made up of four base components: Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Thymine (aka AGCT). From these four bases, DNA forms groups of three nucleotides (known as codons). A codon is the unit that gives our cells instructions on protein formation.

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