Applied DNA Sciences, Inc., a provider of molecular technologies, has announced that in response to an order from an international cotton gin, the company will be installing its patent-pending SigNature T DNATransfer System at an off-shore gin. Recently, the company has been fielding inquiries for DNA tagging of cotton from multiple foreign countries.
For strategic reasons, the company has decided not to reveal the customer and the location at this time. The SigNature T tagging system will be installed at the international gin this quarter in advance of orders for the company’s molecular taggants.
The benefit of the SigNature T DNA Transfer System is that it can be installed within the gin’s normal processes. The system provides over 60 data points per minute to the company’s CertainT IT platform to monitor, record and audit the quantity of tagged bales and the quality of tagged bales associated with each USDA (or other) bale identification number. The partners in the network use the data to manage tagged bale inventory, bale shipments, and lab test results for samples.
Evidence obtained from quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) tests to date indicate that essentially every fibre that passes through the gin while the DNA Transfer System is operating is exposed to SigNature T DNA. Quantitative PCR, used for the company’s SigNature T, and our fiberTyping, and GeoTyping platforms allow the forensic detection of dilution of the original fibres at any point in the supply chain. The company’s SigNify qPCR system enables testing on-site by trained, certified personnel.
The SigNature T system and supply chain protocols are designed to assure the purity and integrity of any cotton whose global source of origin leads to unique performance or claims. It preserves the integrity and purity of cotton fibre from source to shelf by enabling end-to-end traceability with forensic evidence. Over 100 million data points are being captured per season from the gins into the CertainT Textile Portal and over 3,000 SigNature T tests have been conducted since 2015. Testing will increase consequent to the establishment of our lab in India. The gin data and reports are shared with the company’s partners and customers, via the CertainT systems platform, configurable for third-party systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning or blockchain networks.
