Our Team

Introduction: our project

The rapid development technologies to chemically synthesize long DNA molecules has great potential to be used to generate existing or engineered organisms that could threaten public health. This possibility has been well illustrated by the synthesis of the strain of influenza virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic. The possibility to order for a few hundred dollars, genes coding for deadly toxins or entire genomes of viral pathogens calls for the development of new biosecurity policies. To reduce the risk that individuals with ill intent may exploit the commercial application of nucleic acid synthesis technology to access genetic material derived from or encoding select agents or toxins, we are proposing to implement the sequence screening algorithm, characterize its performance, and propose better screening algorithms.