As silicon-based memory chips approach their fundamental limitations of storage capacity, marginal improvements become progressively more expensive and eventually unfeasible. The proliferation of online telecommunications, corporate networking and the usage of multi-media will continually drive consumers’ demand for greater data storage capacity and ultra-fast data access. Most information is stored in three physical media: paper film, optical (multi-dimensional media) and magnetic. One can form reasonably significant estimates based on data for the worldwide production of each storage medium, and how much content is produced in each of these different formats. Clearly there is a need for continued research and development in the storage arena, especially new storage materials, to satisfy the proliferating demand. Biological macromolecules possess physico-chemical properties that warrant serious consideration in their application to the design of an ideal optical storage media.There are serious limitations to the continued scaling of magnetic recording devices, but there is still time to explore alternatives. It is likely that the rate of improvement in areal density (and hence cost per bit) will begin to level off during the next ten years. After ten years, probe-based technologies, holography, biological macromolecule-based technologies offer immense potential as alternative technologies. Attributes of an ideal optical storage medium: Two general attributes describe characteristics of an ideal optical storage device: Optical media should be physically capable of manifesting at least two steady states. If there are two states, this corresponds to one bit of digital information. If there are more then two stable states, this corresponds to information capacity of more then one bit. The thermal stability of the optical medium is very important. For any given optical medium, a fundamental requirement is the availability of methods for writing, reading, and erasing information. These methods are specific for the optical medium. Selection of a suitable method is dependent upon optical properties and spectral characteristics of the optical medium.Quest for an ideal storage medium:Current perspectives on technological uses of proteins envision a wide array of uses which require the design of robust, heat-stable, photo-stable, and microbial resistant proteins results directly from its primary structure and not necessarily entirely from its secondary and tertiary structural characteristics, as has been reported by a number of research groups. We have pursued a very different approach in the design of mutants of bacteriorhodopsin. While other laboratories have relied on stabilizing the intermediates by temperature, pH, and chemical optimization, we have taken the view that the design of intermediates with high quantum yields and longer t50 can be better accomplished by a combination of theoretical analysis of the energy level diagram of wild-type bacteriorhodopsin and genetic engineering methods. We have relied on a large data-base of sequences of mesophilic and thermophilic proteins reported in the literature. We have used a computer-aided rational design concept and homology of sequences, followed by experimental genetic manipulation of the respective cDNA’s of bacteriorhodopsin and expressed in the yeast, Pichia pastoris, which meets the criterion for an ideal optical storage medium.BioFold will focus on high throughput, high density data storage devices based on genetically engineered bacteriorhodopsins to replace the present technologies, such as magnetic hard drive and solid state ram. These new devices are expected to replace the older technology not only in capacity but also in price, and thus to change the present architecture of computers in such a way as to make them faster, more powerful, and cheaper . BioFold’s br192-based storage devices leap-frog several years ahead of the present technological limits.