Inventors from the University of Illinois and University of Massachusetts at Amherst have developed a novel way of storing data using chemically modified nucleotides combined with DNA base pairs. This system of DNA-based storage creates a novel eleven letter alphabet with room for even more letters that allows for a nearly two-fold increase in the storage density of molecular recorders. Furthermore, the inventors have also developed a novel neural network architecture that sequences these alphabets and constructs with an extremely large accuracy. This entire technology drastically improves upon current DNA-based storage systems and provides them with new directions in molecular storage and computing that have the potential to resolve important cost and implementation issues the industry faces today.