ArticleNational science review2026
A system capable of verifiably and privately screening global DNA synthesis.
Article in National science review, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assembling unregulated DNA segments bypasses synthesis screening: regulate fragments as select agents.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Implementing emerging customer screening standards for nucleic acid synthesis.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Beyond sequence similarity: toward function-based screening of nucleic acid synthesis.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- ADAPT: a programme for the advanced detection of AI-enabled pathogenic threats.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Enhancing privacy in biosecurity with watermarked protein design.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Without safeguards, AI-Biology integration risks accelerating future pandemics.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Reviewability and supportability: New complementary principles to empower research software practices.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2024Review
- Creating Enforceable Biosecurity Standards for Nucleic Acid Providers.Engineering biologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
31 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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 do not 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 cannot 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 USA, Europe and China.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.