Plant DNA may protect military supply chain.

• Author: Beidel, Eric
• Position: Defense Technology Newswire

New laws are taking a tough stance on counterfeit parts, requiring defense contractors to establish ways to detect them and keep them out of the military supply chain. For the first time, contractors will be required to absorb the costs of correcting an issue when counterfeit items are discovered.

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What can help these companies deal with the problem? Botany, researchers say.

New York-based Applied DNA Sciences is working with the Defense Logistics Agency to use the hereditary traits of plants to keep parts that have been tampered with out of military electronic systems.

"There are lots of stops along the way between a microchip manufacturer and a jet fighter where bad things can happen;" said Janice Meraglia, vice president for military and government programs at Applied DNA Sciences,

Adversaries could make a missile go astray or program a "kill switch" to stop a weapon system cold in the middle of a mission. A missile traveling 20 seconds or 20 feet off its intended course could spell disaster, Meraglia said.

Applied DNA has created botanical marks to authenticate products in a manner that cannot be copied. The company so far has focused on...