In Gattaca, the demand for genetic perfection drives genetic deception: people use substitute DNA to disguise their “inadequacies.”

The method in Gattaca was relatively simple: the “perfect,” impostor blood was put in a fake fingertip, so that an automatic sampler would take the wrong blood.

Now a team of scientists has already gone further, the New York Times reports. The team “fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.”

In other words, “any biology undergraduate” (in their words) could use a DNA profile to make fake genetic evidence, tying the victim to a place or activity they had nothing to do with.

For now, this method would not allow faking the full genome, but it is likely that if certain characteristics were being sought in a sample in the future, this or a similar technology could fake them by then.

(Thanks to Christopher Kent for the tip.)

(Image courtesy mknowles, Flickr)