As traditional semiconductor technologies for computer storage scale down, everyone is looking for alternative solutions to the growing gap between the amount of data we’re capable of producing and the amount of data we’re capable of storing. While some have focused on hardware accelerators for machine learning, and others are investigating new memory technologies, Dr. Karin Strauss, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, has been exploring the role of biotechnology in IT via an end-to-end system that stores digital data in DNA.

On today’s podcast, Dr. Strauss talks about life at the intersection of computer science and biology which, for many, is more like the intersection of science fiction and science, and explains how the unique properties of DNA could eventually enable us to store really big data in really small places for a really long time.