_version_ 1866911030058156032
author Baum, Carsten
Berlips, Jens
Chen, Walther
Cozzarini, Helena
Cui, Hongrui
Damgård, Ivan
Dong, Jiangbin
Esvelt, Kevin M.
Foner, Leonard
Gao, Mingyu
Gretton, Dana
Kysel, Martin
Li, Juanru
Li, Xiang
Paneth, Omer
Rivest, Ronald L.
Sage-Ling, Francesca
Shamir, Adi
Shen, Yue
Sun, Meicen
Vaikuntanathan, Vinod
Van Hauwe, Lynn
Vogel, Theia
Weinstein-Raun, Benjamin
Wang, Yun
Wichs, Daniel
Wooster, Stephen
Yao, Andrew C.
Yu, Yu
Zhang, Haoling
Zhang, Kaiyi
author_facet Baum, Carsten
Berlips, Jens
Chen, Walther
Cozzarini, Helena
Cui, Hongrui
Damgård, Ivan
Dong, Jiangbin
Esvelt, Kevin M.
Foner, Leonard
Gao, Mingyu
Gretton, Dana
Kysel, Martin
Li, Juanru
Li, Xiang
Paneth, Omer
Rivest, Ronald L.
Sage-Ling, Francesca
Shamir, Adi
Shen, Yue
Sun, Meicen
Vaikuntanathan, Vinod
Van Hauwe, Lynn
Vogel, Theia
Weinstein-Raun, Benjamin
Wang, Yun
Wichs, Daniel
Wooster, Stephen
Yao, Andrew C.
Yu, Yu
Zhang, Haoling
Zhang, Kaiyi
contents Printing custom DNA sequences is essential to scientific and biomedical research, but the technology can be used to manufacture plagues as well as cures. Just as ink printers recognize and reject attempts to counterfeit money, DNA synthesizers and assemblers should deny unauthorized requests to make viral DNA that could be misused. There are three complications. First, we don't need to quickly update printers to deal with newly discovered currencies, whereas we regularly learn of new potential pandemic viruses and other biological threats. Second, convincing counterfeit bills can't be printed in small pieces and taped together, while preventing the distributed synthesis and subsequent re-assembly of controlled sequences will require tracking which DNA fragments have been ordered across all providers and benchtop devices while protecting legitimate customer privacy. Finally, counterfeiting can at worst undermine faith in currency, whereas unauthorized DNA synthesis could be used to deliberately cause pandemics. Here we describe SecureDNA, a free, privacy-preserving, and fully automated system capable of verifiably screening all DNA synthesis orders of 30+ nucleotides against an up-to-date database of controlled sequences, and its operational performance and specificity when applied to 67 million nucleotides of DNA synthesized by providers in the United States, Europe, and China.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_14023
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A system capable of verifiably and privately screening global DNA synthesis
Baum, Carsten
Berlips, Jens
Chen, Walther
Cozzarini, Helena
Cui, Hongrui
Damgård, Ivan
Dong, Jiangbin
Esvelt, Kevin M.
Foner, Leonard
Gao, Mingyu
Gretton, Dana
Kysel, Martin
Li, Juanru
Li, Xiang
Paneth, Omer
Rivest, Ronald L.
Sage-Ling, Francesca
Shamir, Adi
Shen, Yue
Sun, Meicen
Vaikuntanathan, Vinod
Van Hauwe, Lynn
Vogel, Theia
Weinstein-Raun, Benjamin
Wang, Yun
Wichs, Daniel
Wooster, Stephen
Yao, Andrew C.
Yu, Yu
Zhang, Haoling
Zhang, Kaiyi
Cryptography and Security
Printing custom DNA sequences is essential to scientific and biomedical research, but the technology can be used to manufacture plagues as well as cures. Just as ink printers recognize and reject attempts to counterfeit money, DNA synthesizers and assemblers should deny unauthorized requests to make viral DNA that could be misused. There are three complications. First, we don't need to quickly update printers to deal with newly discovered currencies, whereas we regularly learn of new potential pandemic viruses and other biological threats. Second, convincing counterfeit bills can't be printed in small pieces and taped together, while preventing the distributed synthesis and subsequent re-assembly of controlled sequences will require tracking which DNA fragments have been ordered across all providers and benchtop devices while protecting legitimate customer privacy. Finally, counterfeiting can at worst undermine faith in currency, whereas unauthorized DNA synthesis could be used to deliberately cause pandemics. Here we describe SecureDNA, a free, privacy-preserving, and fully automated system capable of verifiably screening all DNA synthesis orders of 30+ nucleotides against an up-to-date database of controlled sequences, and its operational performance and specificity when applied to 67 million nucleotides of DNA synthesized by providers in the United States, Europe, and China.
title A system capable of verifiably and privately screening global DNA synthesis
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14023