Enhancing Biosecurity with Watermarked Protein Design

Yanshuo Chen, Zhengmian Hu, Yihan Wu, Ruibo Chen, Yongrui Jin, Wei Chen, Heng Huang

Abstract:

The biosecurity issue arises as the capability of deep learning-based protein design
has rapidly increased in recent years. To address this problem, we propose a
new general framework for adding watermarks to protein sequences designed by
various sampling-based deep learning models. Compared to currently proposed
protein design regulation procedures, watermarks ensure robust traceability and
maintain the privacy of protein sequences. Moreover, using our framework does
not decrease the performance or accessibility of the protein design tools.