DeepMind Unveils SynthID Bio to Watermark AI-Designed Proteins

Google DeepMind published SynthID Bio in Nature, the first family of invisible, verifiable watermarks for AI-designed protein sequences and 3D structures. The system is open-sourced with model weights, code and in vitro data, and watermarked binders matched unwatermarked ones on hit rate and binding affinity across three clinical targets.

• Combines sequence-level and AlphaFold 3 structure-level watermarking
• Watermarks preserve protein folding and binding function in wet-lab tests
• Code, model weights and in vitro data released as open source
• Aims to close the biosecurity screening gap for novel AI-designed sequences