List of Companies and Available Tools to Assist Providers and Manufacturers in Screening Orders
This list serves as a resource for providers of synthetic nucleic acids (Providers) and manufacturers of benchtop nucleic acid synthesis equipment (Manufacturers) that need to screen purchase orders to identify sequences of concern to comply with §4(b) of the Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI EO) and the resulting US Framework for Nucleic Acid Synthesis Screening (Framework). Please refer to For Providers & Benchtop Manufacturers or the FAQs for more information relevant to Providers and Manufacturers.
This list includes companies that provide screening services as well as open-source tools that can be repurposed for in-house screening solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this list comprises all commercially and freely available gene synthesis screening tools on the market. This list does not include in-house screening tools that are unavailable on the open market.
This page is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Users should not rely on the information provided as a substitute for consultation with qualified counsel. The list, ordered alphabetically, includes excerpts from providers’ and tools’ websites. We have not verified any claims and do not endorse or recommend any screening service company or tool by listing them.
Get in Touch
If you are aware of other available screening tools, please contact Melissa Hopkins at melissa.hopkins@jhu.edu.
Aclid
- Commercial
- Flags matches at 50 base pairs or above, capable of screening down to 30 base pairs
- IGSC Member
From Aclid’s Website: “We’re an end-to-end solution for gene synthesis compliance. Screen DNA and RNA for controlled pathogenic or toxic elements. Automate compliance follow ups with your customers and verify credentials. Centralize all your biosecurity data to stay compliant with reporting requirements.”
Batelle: UltraSEQ™
- Commercial
- Flags matches at 50 base pairs or above
- IGSC Member
From Batelle’s Website: “For users who need simple, high confidence, actionable information from genomic data, UltraSEQ provides a flexible system architecture, high-quality data, and algorithms for organism and function identification. UltraSEQ uses a robust Sequence of Concern database and a learning Threat Identification algorithm to allow researchers to study new DNA sequences safely and responsibly by: 1) Reducing the potential for unintended production of DNA sequences of concern 2) Quickly and accurately detecting threats 3) Protecting against biosecurity risks.
IBBIS: Common Mechanism
- Free
- Flags matches at 50 base pairs or above
- IGSC Member
From IBBIS’s Website: “An open-source, globally available tool for DNA synthesis screening. The Common Mechanism helps providers of synthetic DNA and RNA to effectively screen orders to prevent synthesis technology from being exploited. We provide free, distributed, open-source, automated software for screening sequences of nucleic acids (including DNA and RNA) as well as resources to facilitate customer screening.”
NCBI: BLAST
- Free
- Bioinformatics tool that can be adapted for many purposes, one of them may be screening. Providers and Manufacturers could use this tool to develop in-house screening software.
From NCBI’s Website: The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) “finds regions of similarity between biological sequences. The program compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance.”
RTX BBN Technologies: FAST-NA Scanner
- Commercial
- Flags matches at 50 base pairs or above
- IGSC Member
From RTX BBN’s Website: “Unprecedented speed and accuracy for biological threat screening. Compliant with current HHS screening framework guidance for providers and users of synthetic oligonucleotides, as well as draft updates, RTX BBN’s FAST-NA Scanner is software designed to integrate seamlessly with your current proprietary workflows to: 1) Screen nucleic acid sequences with 50 or more base pairs. 2) Analyze for both nucleic and amino acid matches at <2% false positive rates. 3) Deliver results at a rate of >10kb/second, approximately 1,000 times faster than BLAST.”
SecureDNA
- Free
- Flags matches at 30 base pairs or above
From SecureDNA’s Website: “SecureDNA is a free, non-profit screening platform designed to safeguard DNA synthesis everywhere. Built to keep customer data secure, it uses a privacy-preserving cryptographic algorithm that checks very short DNA subsequences from orders to see if they match known hazards or functional variants of hazards without ever learning the identity of the order.”
Signature Science: SeqScreen-Nano
- Free
- Flags matches at 50 base pairs or above
From Signature Science’s Website: “This tool enables biothreat assessors’ analysis of nanopore sequencing results in real-time from portable sequencing hardware. SeqScreen-Nano goes beyond taxonomic (genus-species) identification of known pathogens to also report functional threat assessments for both known and emerging pathogens. … Using this bioinformatics software tool, biothreat assessors can now determine the threat potential of individual gene sequences based on their pathogenic function, a capability that revolutionizes biothreat detection by delivering real-time assessments of unknown or emerging threats.”