Advances in synthetic biology and genome editing have led to a growing industry to develop customized cell lines for medical research. These engineered cell lines, however, can be vulnerable to misidentification, cross-contamination and illegal replication.
A team of University of Texas at Dallas researchers has developed a first-of-its-kind method to create a unique identifier for each copy of a cell line to allow users to verify its authenticity and protect the manufacturer’s intellectual property (IP). The engineers demonstrated the method in a study published online May 4 and in the May 6 print edition of Science Advances.
