{"id":1151114,"date":"2025-10-02T11:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T18:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&#038;p=1151114"},"modified":"2025-10-08T06:10:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T13:10:27","slug":"strengthening-nucleic-acid-biosecurity-screening-against-generative-protein-design-tools","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/publication\/strengthening-nucleic-acid-biosecurity-screening-against-generative-protein-design-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening nucleic acid biosecurity screening against generative protein design tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-teams=\"true\">Advances in artificial intelligence (AI)\u2013assisted protein engineering are enabling breakthroughs in the life sciences but also introduce new biosecurity challenges. Synthesis of nucleic acids is a choke point in AI-assisted protein engineering pipelines. Thus, an important focus for efforts to enhance biosecurity given AI-enabled capabilities is bolstering methods used by nucleic acid synthesis providers to screen orders. We evaluated the ability of open-source AI-powered protein design software to create variants of proteins of concern that could evade detection by the biosecurity screening tools used by nucleic acid synthesis providers, identifying a vulnerability where AI-redesigned sequences could not be detected reliably by current tools. In response, we developed and deployed patches, greatly improving detection rates of synthetic homologs more likely to retain wild type\u2013like function.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advances in artificial intelligence (AI)\u2013assisted protein engineering are enabling breakthroughs in the life sciences but also introduce new biosecurity challenges. Synthesis of nucleic acids is a choke point in AI-assisted protein engineering pipelines. Thus, an important focus for efforts to enhance biosecurity given AI-enabled capabilities is bolstering methods used by nucleic acid synthesis providers to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2025-10-2","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":0,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556],"msr-publication-type":[193726],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[269148,269142],"msr-field-of-study":[246694,270125],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-1151114","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-approved-for-river","msr-post-option-include-in-river","msr-field-of-study-artificial-intelligence","msr-field-of-study-biosecurity"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2025-10-2","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","viewUrl":"false","id":"false","title":"https:\/\/erichorvitz.com\/paraphrase.htm","label_id":"243109","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Bruce Wittmann","user_id":43991,"rest_url":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Bruce Wittmann"},{"type":"guest","value":"tessa-alexanian","user_id":1151028,"rest_url":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=tessa-alexanian"},{"type":"text","value":"Craig Bartling","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jacob Beal","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Adam Clore","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"guest","value":"james-diggans","user_id":1151030,"rest_url":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=james-diggans"},{"type":"text","value":"Kevin Flyangolts","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Bryan Gemler","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Tom Mitchell","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Steven T. 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The project\u2019s core motivation is to preemptively identify and patch vulnerabilities in biosecurity protocols before they can be exploited, ensuring that the rapid pace of innovation in AI-driven biotechnology does not outstrip safety measures. 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