RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Magnetic DNA random access memory with nanopore readouts and exponentially-scaled combinatorial addressing JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.09.15.460571 DO 10.1101/2021.09.15.460571 A1 Billy Lau A1 Shubham Chandak A1 Sharmili Roy A1 Kedar Tatwawadi A1 Mary Wootters A1 Tsachy Weissman A1 Hanlee P. Ji YR 2021 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/16/2021.09.15.460571.abstract AB The storage of data in DNA typically involves encoding and synthesizing data into short oligonucleotides, followed by reading with a sequencing instrument. Major challenges include the molecular consumption of synthesized DNA, issues with basecalling errors, and limitations with scaling up read access operations for individual data elements. Addressing these challenges, we describe a DNA storage system called MDRAM (Magnetic DNA-based Random Access Memory) that enables repetitive and efficient readouts of targeted files with nanopore-based sequencing. Through conjugation of synthesized DNA to magnetic beads, we enabled repeated readouts of data while preserving the original DNA analyte and maintaining data readout quality. MDRAM also utilizes an efficient convolutional coding scheme that leverages soft information in raw nanopore sequencing signals to achieve information reading costs comparable to Illumina sequencing despite substantially higher error rates. Finally, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept DNA-based proto-filesystem that enables an exponentially-scalable data address space using only small numbers of targeting primers for assembly and readout.ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY We demonstrate a novel DNA data storage system that leverages conjugation of DNA onto magnetic beads, new computational advances in data encoding, and exponentially scalable access of individual data elements.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.