All those who think that DNA can store only our genetic information, think again. Researchers at Harvard University have succeeded in storing 70 billion copies of a yet-unpublished book using DNA binary code.

The technology was developed by George Church and Sriram Kosuri from Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The results of their collaborated project were published in the University's peer-reviewed journal Science Aug.17.

"Most non-DNA methods store on a plane, while DNA can be stored in the volume (beaker). The density is remarkably high - as little as one bit per base, one base per cubit nanometer. So we can store on the order of almost a zetabyte in a gram of DNA - a millimeter volume," Church told.

According to Kosuri, the total world's information, which is 1.8 zettabytes, could be stored in about four grams of DNA.

Church, a founding core faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard, and his team encoded in DNA a book, co-authored by Church himself, which they then decoded and copied. He is also a professor of genetics at the Harvard Medical School who helped develop the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984.

While DNA being the genetic storage unit of all living things has fascinated scientists from the day it was discovered. While this is not the first attempt at exploring the data storage potential of DNA, it is perhaps the most successful as Church and his team were managed to encode 1,000 times the largest amount of data previously stored in DNA.

The researchers reportedly used binary code to preserve the text, images and formatting of the book. Though researchers have tried storing data through other medium such as quantum holography, they require extreme temperature and 'tremendous energy' while DNA is stable at room temperature.

However, according to the Institute's website, reading and writing in DNA is slower than in other media, making it better suited for archival storage of massive amounts of data, rather than for quick retrieval or data processing.