Skip to content
DraconiticResearch
Search Sources API
203,952 studies31 sourcesUpdated 5 min ago
Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Nature Communications

Defending synthetic DNA orders against intra-order splitting-based obfuscation

  • Shaked Tayouri-Attia1,2
  • Vladislav Kogan1,2
  • Jacob Beal3
  • Tal Levy4
  • Dor Farbiash5
  • Kevin Flyangolts6
  • Steven T. Murphy3
  • Tom Mitchell3
  • Ryan Doughty7
  • Felix Quintana7
  • Joshua Stallings7
  • Michael Nute7
5 more authors
  • Gene D. Godbold8
  • Todd J. Treangen7,9,10
  • Barak Rotblat4
  • Isana Veksler-Lublinsky1
  • Rami Puzis1,2
10 affiliations
  1. 1The Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
  2. 2Cyber@BGU, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
  3. 3RTX BBN Technologies, Cambridge, MA USA
  4. 4Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
  5. 5Jusidman Science Center for Youth, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
  6. 6Aclid, New York, NY USA
  7. 7Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, TX USA
  8. 8Signature Science, Charlottesville, VA USA
  9. 9Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, TX USA
  10. 10Ken Kennedy Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX USA
Read full textPDFDOICite

Abstract

Biosecurity screening of synthetic DNA orders is a key defense against malicious actors and careless enthusiasts producing dangerous pathogens or toxins. It is important to evaluate biosecurity screening tools for potential vulnerabilities and to work responsibly with providers to ensure that vulnerabilities can be patched before being publicly disclosed. We consider a class of potential vulnerabilities in which a DNA sequence is obfuscated by splitting it into two or more fragments within a single synthetic DNA order, where the fragments can be readily reassembled via routine biological mechanisms. To evaluate this potential vulnerability, we develop a test set of obfuscated sequences based on controlled toxins, and share these materials with the biosecurity screening community. We then collect and analyze results from open-source and commercial biosecurity screening tools, alongside a novel Gene Edit Distance algorithm specifically designed to be robust against splitting-based obfuscations.

Related

  1. Defending against deepfake speech attacks via feature dropout and dropin regularization in large audio language models.
    Yupei Li, Yixiong Fang, Jiahao Xue +2
    Frontiers in artificial intelligencePeer-reviewedCC BYFull textEurope PMC
  2. Synthetic twist geometry in mesoscopic quantum circuits: geometric capacitance and chiral mode splitting
    Edilberto O. Silva
    arXivPreprintarXiv licenceFull textCondensed matterQuantum physics & quantum informationarXiv
  3. Dual Branch Transformer with Physical Priors for PSF Acquisition to Enable PSF Guided Image Restoration against Co Phasing Errors in Optical Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Imaging
    Gan Li, Haoyong Li, Jiali Liao +2
    Optics ExpressPeer-reviewedLicence not statedOptics & photonicsCrossref
  4. A genome-wide computational approach for therapeutic targets identification and synthetic peptide assembly enable rational vaccine design against Arcanobacterium haemolyticum
    Khawaja Fawad Parvez, Farwa Najeeb, Muhammad Umer Khan +6
    Scientific ReportsPeer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textMolecular biology & gene regulationCrossref
  5. Verifiable Quantum Advantage and Computation via Quantum Circuit Obfuscation
    Alexandru Gheorghiu, Aparna Gupte, Vojtěch Havlíček +1
    arXivPreprintCC BY 4.0Full textQuantum physics & quantum informationarXiv

Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{tayouriattia2026defending,
  title = {{Defending synthetic DNA orders against intra-order splitting-based obfuscation}},
  author = {Shaked Tayouri-Attia and Vladislav Kogan and Jacob Beal and Tal Levy and Dor Farbiash and Kevin Flyangolts and Steven T. Murphy and Tom Mitchell and Ryan Doughty and Felix Quintana and Joshua Stallings and Michael Nute and Gene D. Godbold and Todd J. Treangen and Barak Rotblat and Isana Veksler-Lublinsky and Rami Puzis},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77459-3},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77459-3},
  note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Defending synthetic DNA orders against intra-order splitting-based obfuscation
AU  - Shaked Tayouri-Attia
AU  - Vladislav Kogan
AU  - Jacob Beal
AU  - Tal Levy
AU  - Dor Farbiash
AU  - Kevin Flyangolts
AU  - Steven T. Murphy
AU  - Tom Mitchell
AU  - Ryan Doughty
AU  - Felix Quintana
AU  - Joshua Stallings
AU  - Michael Nute
AU  - Gene D. Godbold
AU  - Todd J. Treangen
AU  - Barak Rotblat
AU  - Isana Veksler-Lublinsky
AU  - Rami Puzis
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/28
JO  - Nature Communications
DO  - 10.1038/s41467-026-77459-3
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77459-3
AB  - Biosecurity screening of synthetic DNA orders is a key defense against malicious actors and careless enthusiasts producing dangerous pathogens or toxins. It is important to evaluate biosecurity screening tools for potential vulnerabilities and to work responsibly with providers to ensure that vulnerabilities can be patched before being publicly disclosed. We consider a class of potential vulnerabilities in which a DNA sequence is obfuscated by splitting it into two or more fragments within a single synthetic DNA order, where the fragments can be readily reassembled via routine biological mechanisms. To evaluate this potential vulnerability, we develop a test set of obfuscated sequences based on controlled toxins, and share these materials with the biosecurity screening community. We then collect and analyze results from open-source and commercial biosecurity screening tools, alongside a novel Gene Edit Distance algorithm specifically designed to be robust against splitting-based obfuscations.
SN  - 2041-1723
ER  -