Synthesizing DNA molecules with identity-based digital signatures to prevent malicious tampering and enabling source attribution

Abstract

DNA molecules are increasingly being synthesized in the laboratory. A major concern in this domain is that a malicious actor can potentially tweak a benevolent synthesized DNA molecule and create a DNA molecule with harmful properties (Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology (2018) The National Academies Press). To detect if a synthesized DNA molecule has been modified from the original version created in the laboratory, the authors in (In Proceedings of the New Security Paradigms Workshop (2018) ACM) proposed a digital signature protocol for creating a signed DNA molecule. However, several challenges arise in more complex molecules because of various forms of DNA mutations as well as size restrictions of the molecule that impact its properties. The current work extends (In Proceedings of the New Security Paradigms Workshop (2018) ACM) in several directions to address these problems. A second concern with synthesized DNA is that it is an intellectual property. In order to allow its use by third parties, an annotated document of the molecule needs to be distributed. However, since the molecule and document are two different entities, one being a physical product and the other being a digital one, ensuring that both are distributed correctly together without tampering is challenging. This work also addresess this problem by transforming the document into a DNA molecule and embedding it within the original molecule together with the signature.