Duke University researchers have programmed strands of synthetic DNA to self-assemble into a bar-code-like structure. The process could eventually be used to make templates that will enable molecule-by-molecule construction of electronic circuits.

The method coaxes columns of looped and non-looped strands of DNA to stack into a pattern that is readable by microscope. The researchers programmed the process to produce two different barcodes — 01101 and 10010. The prototype DNA barcodes stored the five bits of information in a 75-nanometer long lattice of DNA.