Human genome stored on ‘eternal’ memory crystal

Scientists at the University of Southampton have stored the entire human genome on a 5D memory crystal, a revolutionary data storage format that can survive for billions of years.

The team hopes the crystal could provide a blueprint to bring humanity back from extinction in thousands, millions, or even billions of years, if science allows.

This technology could also be used to create a lasting record of the genomes of endangered plant and animal species.

Crystals of Eternity

The 5D memory crystal was developed by the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the University of Southampton.

Unlike other data storage formats that degrade over time, 5D memory crystals can store up to 360 terabytes of information (in the largest size) without loss for billions of years, even at high temperatures. It holds the Guinness World Record (awarded in 2014) for the longest-lasting data storage material.

The crystal is equivalent to fused quartz, one of the most chemically and thermally resistant materials on Earth. It can withstand extremes of frost, fire, and temperatures up to 1,000 °C. The crystal can also withstand direct impact force of up to 10 tons per cm² and remains unchanged after long exposure to cosmic radiation.

The Southampton team, led by Professor Peter Kazansky, uses ultrafast lasers to precisely inscribe data into oriented nanostructured voids in silica, with feature sizes as small as 20 nanometres.

Unlike marking only on the surface of a 2D piece of paper or magnetic tape, this encoding method uses two optical dimensions and three spatial coordinates to write across the entire material, hence the “5D” in its name.

Restore species

The longevity of the crystals means they will outlive humans and other species. It is currently not possible to synthetically create humans, plants and animals using genetic information alone, but major advances in synthetic biology have been made in recent years, including the creation of a synthetic bacterium by Dr Craig Venter’s team in 2010.

“We know from the work of other researchers that genetic material from simple organisms can be synthesized and used in an existing cell to create a viable living specimen in the laboratory,” says Professor Kazansky.

“The 5D memory crystal opens up possibilities for other researchers to build a permanent repository of genomic information from which complex organisms like plants and animals could be restored if science allows in the future.”

To test this concept, the team created a 5D memory crystal containing the entire human genome. For the genome’s roughly 3 billion letters, each letter was sequenced 150 times to ensure it was in that location. The deep sequencing work was done in partnership with Helixwork Technologies.

Visual cues

The crystal is stored in the Memory of Humanity Archive, a special time capsule in a salt cave in Hallstatt, Austria.

When designing the crystal, the team considered the possibility that the data it contains could be retrieved by an intelligence (species or machine) that would succeed us in the distant future. Indeed, it could be that this data is discovered so far in the future that no frame of reference exists.

“The visual key inscribed on the crystal allows the discoverer to know what data is stored inside and how it might be used,” explains Professor Kazansky.

Above the dense planes of data contained within, the key shows the universal elements (hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen); the four bases of the DNA molecule (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine) with their molecular structure; their placement in the double helix structure of DNA; and how genes are positioned on a chromosome, which can then be inserted into a cell.

To get a visual cue as to what species the 5D memory crystal belongs to, the team paid homage to the plaques on the Pioneer spacecraft that were launched by NASA on a path to take it beyond the outer reaches of the solar system.

“We don’t know if memory crystal technology will ever keep up with the distance traveled by these plates, but we can expect with a high degree of confidence that each disk will exceed their survival time,” adds Professor Kazansky.