A free, open-source, globally-available tool for 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.

The Common Mechanism will provide resources to support each step of synthesis screening, answering the questions shown below:

Supporting a Common Global Baseline for Synthesis Screening

The Common Mechanism was designed to address a number of challenges that DNA providers face:

• Developing and maintaining DNA synthesis screening tools is costly for many providers.


• The price per base of synthesis is decreasing, and the volume of orders is increasing, which makes screening orders an increasingly difficult economic burden.


• Sensitive intellectual property is embedded in the sequences ordered by customers, making it difficult to get outside help with screening.


• Existing DNA synthesis screening tools and resources are not fully accessible to everyone, everywhere.


• Benchtop DNA synthesis devices, which are becoming commercially available and which will decentralize the market for these services, will require more unambiguous and automated systems for flagging sequences in order to realize their benefit of faster turnaround time.

The Common Mechanism has been under development for several years in partnership with the international Technical Consortium for DNA Synthesis Screening, which was launched by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in partnership with the World Economic Forum in 2020. Discussions about technical specifications for the Common Mechanism began in 2020, initial databases and a screening algorithm were developed throughout 2021-2023, and beta testing commenced in late 2023.