The small size and slow degradation rate of DNA give it the potential to act as a long-term storage material for large databases. However, searching such databases for files with specific properties poses a challenge because unique addresses contain limited information about the file and make it difficult to find all files with a given property without individually sequencing every strand. We are working on developing an addressing system in which short DNA tags provide information about a file that makes it searchable by a complementary DNA probe. The limited specificity of DNA binding allows for the development of a fuzzy addressing system in which a search for a specific property will find most files with the property exactly matching the search term and some files with similar properties.

I am excited to participate in SuperUROP to learn skills in research planning and execution. I hope that I can apply the lab skills I have learned in previous research experiences to a project that I am able to help design. The project I am working on is also more computational than research I have done in the past, so I am excited to work on my abilities in that area.