An Entire Book Is Written in DNA—and You Can Buy It for $60

Like a tree Human data production will increase significantly with the rise of AI, scientists have been interested DNA as a way to store digital information. After all, DNA is nature’s way of storing things. It encodes the genetic information and determines the structure of every living thing on earth.

And DNA is at least 1,000 times more compact than solid-state hard drives. To show how it works, researchers have already done it wrote all 154 of Shakespeare’s plays, 52 pages of Mozart musicand an episode of the Netflix show “Biohackers” in small DNA.

But these were research projects or media observations. DNA data storage has not yet been fully realized, but it may be getting closer. Now you can buy what may be the first commercially available book written in DNA. Today, Asimov Press produced the first myths of biological science and fiction written in DNA. For $60, you can buy the book along with the nucleic acid version—a metal capsule filled with dried DNA.

To write the book in DNA, Asimov Press worked with the Boston-based company Catalog, which created about 500,000 unique DNA molecules to write the 240 pages of the book, representing 481,280 data points.

Classical DNA data storage works by converting a digital file’s binary code of 0s and 1s into As, Cs, Gs, and Ts—the building blocks of DNA. Custom DNA strands are designed letter by letter to match your requirements.

The catalog instead uses a process called combinatorial assembly, which the company likens to Gutenberg’s printing press. In the same way that movable letters are arranged to form words, Catalog made letters out of pieces of DNA that can be combined to represent small molecules. The company makes the DNA fragments in bulk and then uses enzymes to add more of them. David Turek, the Catalog’s chief technology officer, said it cost a few thousand dollars to print the book in DNA and make 1,000 copies.

He said: “This is how you store something in DNA once and can make as many copies as you want using the tools of biology. “It’s easier to do this out loud.”

In 2023, the French company Biomemory began offering a $1,000 DNA storage card which allows customers to store approximately one kilobyte of data, equivalent to a short email, of their choice. At the time, CEO Erfane Arwani told WIRED that the offering was an attempt to gauge consumer interest in DNA data storage. “We wanted to show that our approach is ready to be shown to the world,” he said.

The cards were expensive, however, because producing DNA is still slow and expensive. The catalog claims that its combination method is very effective. Making duplicate copies of the same book also lowered the cost.

After the catalog was printed, the DNA molecules were dried into a powder and sent to France, where the conservation company Imagene placed the molecules in stainless steel capsules that are airtight, meaning there is no air or moisture inside. In this case, the DNA inside can be preserved for thousands of years.