EnDROIDS is about data, is about DNA and is about people.
Our world is hungry for data; it produces 2.5 quintillion bytes of it each day and it is estimated that the last two years alone generated 90% of all the data ever created. And it’s going to get worse (or better, depending whom you ask) because as machines start “talking” with machines in an ever more integrated and ubiquitous internet of things, the speed at which data is generated will accelerate further. And then there is biology, Nature’s ultimate information producer and consumer. When we start embedding micro and nano sensors into the biological realm, e.g., in our bodies, food sources, the global ecosystem, etc., a true data tsunami will hit us. And, unless new technologies are developed, this data tsunami will bring a tidal wave of carbon emissions, while -at the same time- inevitably changing our societies in unanticipated ways.
Our approach
In this project we bring together computing scientists, nanobio technologists and social scientists to:
- Seek out new technologies to radically scale up the volume of data that can be stored in living cells
- Substantially simplify the storage, sorting and retrieval of DNA-encoded data
- And accomplish the above in a manner that is green-by-design and that from the outset studies the potential impact of these new technologies in our societies.