DNA Analysis

Expert Assistant Software Enables Forensic DNA Analysts to Confidently Process More Samples
By Nicola Oldroyd, Lisa Lane Schade, MHR

With so many improvements across the entire forensic DNA testing workflow introduced over the last five years, forensic scientists and managers are now faced with hard choices and must implement solutions that alleviate bottlenecks most quickly.

International Impact of Forensic DNA Technology
By Ed Huffine

The advent of forensic DNA testing has had a radical and widespread impact on legal-judicial systems. The exact nature of this impact varies from nation to nation, depending on the specific needs of the nation, the existing legal-judicial system, and how DNA technology has been applied.

DNA: Beyond Criminal Justice
By F. Key Kidder

As Sean Carroll’s latest book opens, another hapless victim is exonerated by a dazzling display of DNA’s evidentiary power in America’s legal system.

Postconviction DNA Testing: An International Impact
By Chris Asplen

To point out the obvious—the application of DNA technology to postconviction appeals has compelled more than a few changes to the U.S. criminal justice system.

Three Questions, Five Experts: DNA and Forensic Facilities Q&A
By Ken Mohr

For this article, five forensic experts have come together to answer three commonly asked questions involving DNA and forensic facility design.

Improving Forensic DNA Laboratory Throughput: Enhanced Data Analysis and Expert Systems Capability
By Roger Frappier, Lisa Calandro, Lisa Lane Schade, MHR

The introduction of DNA technology into the forensic laboratory in the mid-1980s enabled laboratories to process a larger array of sample types and utilize more sophisticated tools to help answer difficult questions inherent in forensic casework.Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) methods were supplemented by hybridization-based technologies such as the DQA1/Polymarker kits, which became the first commercially available DNA typing kits for forensic use.

Improved DNA Analysis Through Real-Time PCR Analysis
By Curtis Knox, Benjamin Krenke

Multiplex STR analysis has long been accepted as the gold standard in the field of human identification. This method is highly informative, allowing DNA identification to be made with a high degree of accuracy.

Y-STRs - The Proof is in the Results
By Jennifer Clay

While there have been many jokes within the scientific community about the markers that might be present on the Y chromosome – propensity for the air guitar, total lack of recall for dates, incessant use of the TV remote, and inability to ask for directions – it is this very “maleness” that makes the Y chromosome extremely useful in forensic DNA analysis.

Using HLA and Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphisms to Identify Geographic/Ethnic Origins: The Mammoth Lakes Case
By Henry Erlich, Ph.D., Cassandra D. Calloway, MS

The phone in the office rang. The caller, Sergeant Paul Dostie of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department, asked if we could help identify the geographic/ethnic origins of a buried murder victim that had been recently discovered in a shallow grave in the Shady Rest campground in Mammoth Lakes, in the mountains of Southern California.

Book Review: The DNA Detectives
By John Spooner

The DNA Detectives examines the first time that DNA profiling was used in a criminal case which was in England and then goes into the first time that DNA profiling was used in the United States.

Biological Evidence: Maintaining Integrity of DNA Samples through National Standards
By Lisa Calandro, Dennis J. Reeder, Karen Cormier

With their growing ubiquity in the courtroom, biological evidence and DNA analysis are playing an increasingly important role in proving guilt or innocence.