One of America’s largest retailers has chosen Applied DNA Sciences Inc. (APDN), a provider of DNA-based anti-counterfeiting technology, for SigNature T DNA marking of pima cotton fibers. APDN successfully completed the campaign.

More than 10,000 bales of extra long staple cotton were securely marked at the fiber level with APDN’s botanically-derived DNA and shipped to off-shore locations in Asia for conversion to finished goods that will ultimately be sold at retail this year.

The project's sponsor is a US-based distributor of fine textiles, which provides finished products to many of America's largest brands and retailers. The implementation of the supply chain driven solutions involves multiple corporate alliances for APDN. In combination, the market valuations of the members of this supply chain total more than $200 billion.

According to Dr. James A. Hayward, president and CEO of APDN, it is a historic first step toward increased transparency and compliance for textile supply chains worldwide.

This marks the first deployment of APDN’s DNA technology solutions in Asia, marking and authenticating pima cotton fibers grown in California.

APDN's SigNature T DNA markers can help to monitor supply chain integrity and trace the original fibers, before and after each of the manufacturing steps, which are often completed in a different country for each incremental step in the supply chain.