SBIR Phase I: Covert Combinatorial DNA Taggants Signatures for Authentication, Tracking and Trace-Back

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目开发了一种新的生物分子隐蔽标记方法，该方法用合成DNA纳米生物传感器标记物体，称为ComDTtag，用于验证真实性和法医追踪和追溯。制药公司、品牌所有者和政府需要数千个隐蔽和唯一的签名来保护他们的药品、产品、文件和公民。将DNA用于这一目的对环境是安全的，但到目前为止，还没有一种DNA标记方法能够产生足够的唯一和信息丰富的签名。该项目希望展示ComDTag DNA Taggant系统可以轻松构建数百万个独特的、信息丰富的和隐蔽的DNA签名，并且这些签名只能由授权用户检测和解码。这项研究的更广泛影响是防伪、认证和质量控制技术。造假每年给美国经济造成2000亿美元的损失，并导致美国人失去75万个工作岗位。假冒肝素已导致100多名美国人死亡，另有数百人出现严重过敏反应。这些令人不安的事实表明，越来越需要安全和隐蔽的方法来预防、跟踪和追查假冒产品。隐蔽的ComDTag签名可以可行地满足这些需求。与更公开的标记产品相结合，ComDTag签名可以为商业和国家安全利益提供更强大、更安全和更有用的隐蔽跟踪和回溯解决方案。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project develops a new biomolecular covert taggant method that marks objects with synthetic DNA nano-scale biosensors, called ComDTags, for verification of authenticity and for forensic track and trace-back. Pharmaceutical companies, brand owners and governments need thousands of covert and unique signatures to protect their drugs, products, documents and citizens. Using DNA for this purpose is environmentally safe, but to date, no DNA taggant method can produce enough unique and information-rich signatures. This project expects to demonstrate that the ComDTag DNA taggant system can easily construct millions of unique, information-rich and covert DNA signatures and that these signatures can be detected and decoded only by authorized users. The broader impacts of this research are anti-counterfeiting, authentication and quality control technologies. Counterfeiting costs the U.S. economy $200 billion per year and is responsible for the loss of 750,000 American jobs. The counterfeiting of the drug heparin has been linked to the deaths of over a hundred Americans with hundreds more having severe allergic reactions. These disturbing facts indicate that there is an increasing need for safe and covert methods to prevent, track and trace-back counterfeit products. Covert ComDTag signatures can feasibly meet these needs. Combined with more overt taggant products, ComDTag signatures can yield more robust, secure and useful covert track and trace-back solutions for commercial and national security interests.