I’m a bit curious about what the purpose of this is… PCR machines in and of themselves don’t have an output. However, this is about a specific real-time PCR machine, which does have a digital output. It is a simple mistake, but is an important distinction. And it makes me wonder about how much experience the authors have in a lab setting. It’s important to know how these systems are used in real life to know what is really practical.

This looks like a very interesting project in exploring how much work would really go into locking down a specific instrument. Spoiler — This is a lot of work! But, now knowing how much effort there is here, I don’t see how practical it would be.

I’m not convinced that locking down each specific piece of equipment is really the answer to the issue (which I agree is a problem). There are too many different types of equipment to really make a dent in locking down a lab’s workflow. What might work though is a resource for signing digital assets/output files to prove the raw data is unaltered. You couldn’t stop someone from uploading an altered digital file, but you’d have a digital pop trail for when a file was created. That coupled with a lab notebook, and you’d have a pretty good audit trail.

I’ve done a bit of work in this space a long time ago. The hardest part was always getting people to actually use the system. Now that journals are starting to require copies of all raw results used in figures, this type of system would make more sense and could make a real impact.