[Gadgets]SF technology has become a reality. It promises to avoid electoral fraud and the disappearance of counterfeit products

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Barcodes applied to labels and QR codes used to identify both T-shirts and vehicles could be replaced by a marking system based on synthetic DNA that is not visible to the naked eye.

The new system would thus help to combat counterfeit products, as it would be very difficult for criminals to detect and traffic a liquid brand based on a combination of DNA and placed on valuables such as ballot papers, artwork and secret documents, reports Agerpres.

In an article published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft experts praised the low cost of their molecular marking system, called "Porcupine" ("porcupine").

This technology has been avoided until now because it "costs a lot of time and takes some time to write and decipher" a DNA code. These details lead to an increase in the need for expensive equipment and laboratories, explained the study's lead author, Katie Doroschak, a doctoral student at the University of Washington.

Porcupine avoids these problems by prefabricating synthetic DNA fragments, which the user can combine arbitrarily to create new markings.

The system is "based on a series of small DNA sequences called molecular bits," according to a statement released on the US university's website.

The procedure for encoding a username is to add a "molbit" to each digital bit of the tag.

"If the digital bit is 1, its 'bit' is added to the username, and if it is 0, then it is left out. Then it is left to dry to be decoded later ", explained Katie Doroschak.

To read the username, add a little water to it, which moisturizes the molecular label, which is then scanned by a DNA reader smaller than a smartphone - a nanopore sequencer.

DNA tags cannot be detected with the naked eye or by touch, a study participant, Jeff Nivala, was quoted as saying in a statement released by the university. "This is the element that makes them difficult to traffic," he added.

"We can imagine a molecular marking to monitor ballots and thus avoid election fraud," said Jeff Nivala.

The new technique would allow marking objects that would be difficult to identify in another way.

"We cannot label cotton or fiber with conventional methods such as RFID tagging or QR codes, but a liquid DNA-based label could be used in spray form," said the study's co-ordinator.

"This would be useful in supply chains, where monitoring of the source material is important for preserving the value of the final product," she said.