Engineers have demonstrated a method for ensuring that an increasingly popular method of genetic identification called »DNA fingerprinting» remains secure against inadvertent mistakes or malicious attacks in the field. The technique relies on introducing genetic »barcodes» to DNA samples as they are collected and securely sending information crucial to identifying these barcodes to technicians in the laboratory.

The technique relies on introducing genetic «barcodes» to DNA samples as they are collected and securely sending information crucial to identifying these barcodes to technicians in the laboratory. The system shows one way to guarantee that a sample taken in the field, transported to a lab and processed for genetic identification is genuine.

The results appear online on May 14 in the journal IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.

«If you think about conventional encryption techniques, like security for a smartphone, there’s usually a passcode that only one person knows,» said Mohamed Ibrahim, a system-on-chip design engineer at Intel Corporation and recent Duke electrical and computer engineering PhD graduate. «Our idea is to inject non-harmful material into genetic samples immediately when they are collected in the field that act as a similar password. This would ensure that the samples are authentic when they reach the processing stage.»

DNA fingerprinting is a method of identifying a specific person, organism or disease based on only a small amount of genetic material. While about 99.9 percent of the DNA between two unrelated humans is the same, that still leaves around three million base pairs that are different. And within that potentially identifying dataset, certain short segments of DNA sequences are much more likely than others to vary in composition from person to person.

Rather than sequencing a person’s entire genome, which still costs more than $1,000 a pop, scientists can target a handful of these short sequences for identification. In DNA fingerprinting, a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) replicates the genetic sequences at these sites repeatedly so that they can easily be read. Based on the specific combinations of nucleic acids at these various sites, genetic samples can be matched to their sources. While it may seem like data from hundreds of these sites would be needed to make a definitive match, they vary so much from person to person that the Federal Bureau of Investigations currently recommends that only 13 are necessary.

Story Source: Materials provided by Duke University. Original written by Ken Kingery. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.