Microsoft: World's first fully automated DNA data storage system

Microsoft principal researcher Karin Strauss says the group wanted to prove there is a practical way of automating DNA data storage. "Our ultimate goal is to put a system into production that, to the end user, looks very much like any other cloud storage service – bits are sent to a data center and stored there and then they just appear when the customer wants them," said Strauss.

"To do that, we needed to prove that this is practical from an automation perspective." Chris Takahashi, senior research scientist at the Paul G Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, explains that while machines are already used for synthesizing and sequencing DNA, many of the steps are manual.

"You can't have a bunch of people running around a data center with pipettes – it's too prone to human error, it's too costly, and the footprint would be too large," Takahashi said.
source: www.zdnet.com