Paper 2025/089

An Introduction to Protein Cryptography

Hayder Tirmazi, City College of New York
Tien Phuoc Tran, Harvard University
Abstract

We introduce protein cryptography, a recently proposed method that encodes data into the amino acid sequences of proteins. Unlike traditional digital encryption, this approach relies on the inherent diversity, complexity, and replication resistance of biological macromolecules, making them highly secure against duplication or tampering. The experimental realization of protein cryptography remains an open problem. To accelerate experimental progress in this area, we provide an accessible and self-contained introduction to the fundamentals of cryptography for biologists with limited mathematical and computational backgrounds. Furthermore, we outline a framework for encoding, synthesizing, and decoding information using proteins. By enabling biologists to actively engage in the development of protein cryptography, this work bridges disciplinary boundaries and paves the way for applications in secure data storage.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Applications
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
protein cryptographysymmetric cryptographycomputational biology
Contact author(s)
hayder research @ gmail com
phuoctran @ fas harvard edu
History
2025-01-22: last of 2 revisions
2025-01-20: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2025/089
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/089,
      author = {Hayder Tirmazi and Tien Phuoc Tran},
      title = {An Introduction to Protein Cryptography},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/089},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/089}
}
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