Twist Bioscience converts art into DNA for launch into space

In California, Twist Bioscience has collaborated with Beyond Earth, an artist collective, on the To Space, From Earth project to send art into space in the form of DNA.

The synthetic biology powerhouse will encode artwork into silicon-based synthetic DNA to send into the final frontier by 2022.

Beyond Earth artists that will contribute work to the project include Elena Soterakis of New York, NY; Richelle Gribble of Los Angeles, CA; and Yoko Shimizu, of Linz, Austria and Tokyo, Japan. The selected works seek to display the challenges humanity faces in population growth, consumption, and preserving Earth’s biodiversity. “The artists chose to store this message of human impact in synthetic DNA, which is present in nearly all living organisms, to symbolize life on Earth,” according to a press statement. “These artworks serve as a visual record of this current time; they reflect challenges of today to inspire new approaches for a better future. Beyond Earth chose Twist Bioscience to encode the artwork in DNA, as the company is leading the field of DNA data storage.”

To store the artwork in DNA, the art is digitized and converted from binary data to the DNA bases represented by the letters A, T, G and C. The encoded DNA sequences are synthesized with Twist Bioscience’s silicon-based platform and preserved in a specialized capsule.

“DNA is nature’s oldest and most resilient data storage method; no energy or maintenance is required to preserve it; it is ultra-dense and hence compact; and lasts hundreds of thousands of years making it the ultimate time capsule for any digitized artwork,” the statement adds. “For these reasons, To Space, From Earth will endure the test of time and serve as an important record of human history and the biosphere.”