加强生物安全与信息完整性

生物安全依赖于多层防御——可以将其视为一种“瑞士奶酪”式的防御模型，其中多个独立的安全措施协同工作，以弥补彼此的盲区。诸如模型层面的缓解措施和客户资质审查等保障措施各自代表了具有潜在漏洞的关键层级。作为我们更广泛的生物弹性愿景的一部分，SynthID Bio 的水印方法作为一种重要的、具体的验证层，嵌入在生物设计本身之中。

“SynthID Bio 是追踪生物设计来源拼图中的一块重要拼图，”审查了这项工作的生物安全政策专家及 Science Policy Consulting 的董事总经理 Sarah Carter 表示。“通过将设计与模型开发者联系起来，这些水印使开发者能够在安全方面发挥领导作用，并允许合成提供商简化对使用过这些模型的客户进行筛查的流程。”

这一层级对于位于生物安全前线的 DNA 合成筛查尤为重要。将数字蛋白质设计转化为物理分子需要向 DNA 合成提供商下单，后者会根据已知威胁数据库对请求进行筛查。例如，历史上，一个陌生的序列可能被安全地假定为未被发现的天然生物体。但由于 AI 能够创造出与已知危害几乎没有相似之处的全新序列，筛查人员不再能做出这种假设。验证一个陌生订单并非工程化威胁需要进行详尽的人工审查，这可能会阻碍至关重要的研究。在此方面，SynthID Bio 可以提供自动化的验证信号，证明该订单源自具有内置安全措施的受信任模型。

“AI 正在扩展科学家能够设计的内容，而 DNA 合成公司在帮助这种创新负责任地规模化方面发挥着重要作用，”Twist Bioscience 的政策与生物安全副总裁 James Diggans 表示，他对该论文提供了早期反馈。“对于 Twist 而言，水印为生物安全工具箱提供了一个有前景的新增工具，它可以加强筛查，将资源集中在需要更仔细审查的序列上，并使生物安全更加高效，随着 AI 设计的生物学不断进步。”

同样，SynthID Bio 也有助于维护蛋白质数据库（Protein Data Bank）、UniProt 和 GenBank 等数据库的完整性。这些数据库中许多对公众开放提交，在科学进步中发挥着至关重要的作用——但错误标记的条目可能会对生物安全决策产生不成比例的负面影响，随着 AI 生成的生物学数据的加入，这一挑战可能会日益严峻。作为提交过程的一部分，SynthID Bio 可以帮助确保合成条目被正确标记或标记以供进一步审查。

展望未来

虽然没有任何单一的生物安全干预措施是万灵药，但 SynthID Bio 将我们久经考验的水印工具 SynthID 带入了合成生物学领域。这是可靠识别和追踪 AI 生成的生物序列和结构的重要第一步。

展望未来，关键挑战包括使水印更能抵御故意篡改。SynthID Bio 还可以与来源元数据方法（类似于数字媒体的 C2PA）或 AI 生成生物学数据的中央存储库相结合，以更好地识别和追踪 AI 生成的蛋白质。

为了匹配前沿AI技术不断增强的能力，我们也在研究如何将水印技术应用于更复杂的生物对象。在与斯坦福大学Hie实验室和Arc研究所的持续合作中，我们将SynthID Bio集成到了Evo 2这一先进的基因组模型中，以实现对Evo 2设计的噬菌体基因组的加水印。早期在细菌培养物中的实验室测试已证实，这些带有水印的噬菌体仍然具有功能。我们相信这项工作有望解决与基因组设计相关的一些生物安全风险，并将在不久后分享更多细节的技术论文。

要充分实现这项工作的生物安全效益，需要社区协作和进一步的研究。作为我们对负责任创新的承诺的一部分，我们发布了方法论文并开源了代码及体外数据，同时向研究界开放模型权重，以便在此基础上继续推进工作。通过与生物安全、基因合成和政策领域的合作伙伴公开合作，我们可以确保安全性与责任感能够跟上AI驱动发现的步伐。

如需就这一重要话题与我们探讨合作机会，请通过synthidbio@google.com发送一份高层级的合作提案。请勿披露任何机密或专有信息。

Strengthening biosecurity and information integrity

Biosecurity relies on layered defenses – think of it like a “Swiss cheese” defense model, where multiple independent safety measures work in tandem to cover each other’s blind spots. Safeguards like model-level mitigations and customer vetting each represent critical layers with potential gaps. As a part of our broader vision for bioresilience , SynthID Bio’s watermarking approach serves as an important, tangible verification layer embedded in the biological design itself.

“SynthID Bio is an important piece of the puzzle for tracking the provenance of biological designs,” said Sarah Carter, a biosecurity policy expert and Principal at Science Policy Consulting who reviewed the work. “By linking designs to the model developer, these watermarks empower developers to lead on safety and allow synthesis providers to streamline screening for customers who have used those models.”

That layer is especially vital to DNA synthesis screening, which sits on the frontlines of biosecurity. Converting digital protein designs into physical molecules requires placing an order with DNA synthesis providers, who screen requests against databases of known threats. For example, historically, an unfamiliar sequence may have been safely assumed to be an undiscovered natural organism. But because AI can create entirely new sequences with little resemblance to known hazards, screeners can no longer make that assumption. Verifying that an unfamiliar order isn't an engineered threat requires exhaustive manual reviews that can stall vital research. Here, SynthID Bio can provide an automated verification signal, proving an order originated from a trusted model with built-in safeguards.

"AI is expanding what scientists can design, and DNA synthesis companies have an important role in helping that innovation scale responsibly,” said James Diggans, Vice President, Policy and Biosecurity at Twist Bioscience, who provided early feedback on the paper. “For Twist, watermarking offers a promising new addition to the biosecurity toolbox that could strengthen screening, focus resources on sequences that warrant closer review and make biosecurity more efficient as AI-designed biology continues to advance."

Similarly, SynthID Bio could help maintain the integrity of databases such as the Protein Data Bank, UniProt, and GenBank. These databases, many of which are open to public submission, play a vital role in scientific advancements – but mislabeled entries can have an outsized negative impact in biosecurity decision-making , a challenge that may only grow with the addition of AI-generated biological data. As a part of the submission process, SynthID Bio could help ensure synthetic entries are properly labeled or flagged for further review.

Looking ahead

While no single biosecurity intervention is a silver bullet, SynthID Bio brings SynthID , our tried and tested watermarking tool, to synthetic biology. It’s an important first step toward reliably identifying and tracking AI-generated biological sequences and structures.

Moving forward, key challenges include making the watermark more robust against deliberate tampering. SynthID Bio can also be paired with provenance metadata approaches – similar to C2PA for digital media – or central repositories of AI-generated biological data to better identify and track AI-generated proteins.

To match the growing capabilities of frontier AI technology, we’re also researching how to apply watermarking to more complex biological objects. In ongoing work with the Hie lab at Stanford University and Arc Institute, we integrated SynthID Bio into Evo 2, an advanced genomic model, to watermark the genome of an Evo 2 designed bacteriophage . Early laboratory testing in bacteria cultures has confirmed these watermarked bacteriophages are functional. We believe this work has the potential to address some of the biosecurity risks associated with genome design and will share more details in a technical manuscript soon.

Realizing the full biosecurity benefits of this work will require community collaboration and further research. As part of our commitment to responsible innovation, we are publishing our methods paper and open-sourcing the code and in vitro data, and releasing the weights to the research community, so we can build on this work. By working openly with partners across biosecurity, gene synthesis, and policy, we can ensure safety and responsibility keeps pace with AI-driven discovery.

To reach out about partnering with us on this important topic, please contact us at synthidbio@google.com with a high level proposal. Please do not disclose any confidential or proprietary information.