new paper<\/a>, to simulate unauthorized access.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cGeneLock greatly improves our ability to protect high-value engineered cell lines by expanding security from the lab environment to the genetic level,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Economic Impact<\/p>\n
What are the stakes? Estimates place the global market for high-value genetic materials at more than $1.5 trillion, projected to reach $8 trillion by 2035. The use of these materials ranges from advanced medicines and proprietary research enzymes to specialty chemicals and sustainable materials.<\/p>\n
Currently, the protection of high-value cell lines depends on physical safeguards such as restricted lab access and secure facilities, Wilson explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key weakness of physical security measures is once circumvented, there are typically no measures in place to protect valuable cells from theft, abuse, or unauthorized use,\u201d Wilson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a sample leaves the building, the DNA it carries typically remains fully functional. This is akin to placing an unlocked cellphone in a desk drawer. Anyone who gains access to the drawer can view sensitive content on the phone\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u2014or in this case will have full access to the valuable cell line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Genetic Passcode Protection<\/p>\n
The GeneLock biological security technology developed by Wilson and his team places a passcode on engineered cells, akin to those used on ATM machines and protected cellphones.<\/p>\n
Instead of leaving a valuable gene in readable form, the team scrambles the DNA sequence of interest. The scrambled genetic asset remains in a nonfunctional state unless the living cell where it resides receives the correct sequence of chemical inputs. Those inputs act as a molecular passcode.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly the right combination, delivered in the right order, rearranges the DNA into a working form,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Biohackathon Security Test<\/p>\n
To evaluate the technology, the researchers organized a blue team and a red team in what they describe as an ethical biohackathon. The blue team designed the encrypted DNA sequence, while the red team was challenged to discover the correct chemical passcode through experimentation in a gray box exercise, meaning the red team had partial knowledge of the system but did not have access to the internal designs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis approach for testing security strength is commonly used in cybersecurity,\u201d Wilson explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The blue team engineered the system inside Escherichia coli, or E. coli, a bacterium widely used in biotechnology. The protected asset was a fluorescent protein gene selected as a measurable stand-in for commercially valuable targets. When the correct chemical sequence was applied, the fluorescence turned on. Without the correct passcode, the gene remained scrambled and the cells could not fluoresce green.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn practice, most DNA sequences produce valuable proteins or chemicals that are essentially invisible to the human eye, requiring specialized devices or experiments to observe,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIf the biohackathon were conducted with a standard commercially valuable target, the penetration testing would have taken more than 10 times longer to complete, years instead of months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biohackathon results showed a dramatic reduction in risk. GeneLock reduced the probability of unlocking the genetic asset by random search to about 1 in 85,000 (a 0.001% chance), assuming the unauthorized user had access to the required chemical inputs.<\/p>\n
Without access to those inputs, \u201cthe likelihood of success by chance becomes effectively negligible,\u201d said Dowan Kim (Georgia Tech PhD 2024), co-lead author of the study.<\/p>\n
Commercial Uses and What\u2019s Next\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although the researchers used a non-commercial fluorescent protein as a test case, the implications extend much further. Many biotechnology companies rely on proprietary engineered strains. New England Biolabs, for example, produces more than 265 non-disclosed enzymes in E. coli, each representing a high-value cell line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Protein-based drugs are also manufactured in living cells, and proprietary metabolic pathways are used to produce specialty chemicals, bioplastics, and high-value ingredients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn each case, the genetic blueprint inside the cell represents intellectual property that can be protected by our technology,\u201d said Ishita Kumar, a PhD candidate in ChBE and co-lead author of the study.<\/p>\n
While the team\u2019s current focus is on protecting intellectual property in the form of high-value cells, future iterations aim to strengthen biological security more broadly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are currently developing protection measures to mitigate unauthorized use or release of sensitive cell lines that can be potentially hazardous to human health or the environment,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs it stands, GeneLock represents an important shift in biological security, enabling, for the first time, protection of valuable cells at the genetic level, even after physical security measures have been bypassed,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The work is already moving toward commercialization. The team filed a provisional patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in February 2026 and is forming a company to deploy the technology.<\/p>\n
CITATION:<\/p>\n
Dowan Kim, Ishita Kumar, Mohamed Hassan, Luisa F. Barraza-Vergara, Christopher A. Voigt, and Corey J. Wilson, \u201cProtecting cells at the genetic level and simulating unauthorized access via a biohackathon<\/a>,\u201d Science Advances, 2026.<\/p>\nTo evaluate the GeneLock technology, the researchers organized a blue team and a red team into a biohackathon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newswise \u2014 In recent years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Homeland Security, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1380,1381,172701,1382,3312,12075,254,22697,103,61,60,1378,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-388992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-all-journal-news","9":"tag-biotech","10":"tag-biotechnologytechnologygenetic-blueprints","11":"tag-cell-biology","12":"tag-cybersecurity","13":"tag-ethics-and-research-methods","14":"tag-genetics","15":"tag-georgia-institute-of-technology","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-newswise","20":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}