Five years ago, the DNA analysis industry found itself poised for a revolution. Some were calling it massively parallel sequencing, others were calling it next-generation sequencing (NGS). Regardless of the name, one thing was clear—this high-throughput approach to DNA sequencing was here to stay.
In the years since, NGS—as it came to be called—has made a huge impact in forensic laboratories, on advanced DNA casework and in both cold and new investigations. The technology has allowed the forensic community to obtain higher levels of discrimination and discover novel and forensically relevant identity-informative markers.
However, despite the success of the technique, a new report from the NIJ’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence at RTI International says NGS is still in an early adoption phase—and adoption has been slow.
The just-published report, titled “Landscape Study of Next Generation Sequencing Technologies for Forensic Applications,” found various barriers to widespread implementation, including:
- upfront and continual investment requirements for resources, including funding, staffing and training,
- the need for additional physical laboratory space to accommodate instrumentation and digital infrastructure,
- the potential need to align with validation and accreditation requirements for the instrument, library preparation kits, software, and optional automation solutions if replacing the lab’s traditional STR sequencing method for entry into CODIS with NGS,
- the time-intensive process of integrating NGS workflows and reporting structures with standard operating procedures and laboratory information management systems,
- restrictions associated with the current CODIS upload framework,
- early-stage implementation could result in minimal use/acceptable in criminal proceedings.
The team behind the paper stressed that an increase in published validation studies and publicly available information will help ease the transition from PCR-CE to NGS technology.
“This increase in technology adoption and open-access validation data can in turn lead to general acceptance of NGS within the court system,” reads the report.
In the meantime, further research into what NGS can—and cannot—do is critical as hope grows for the widespread implementation of the technique.
“Given the adolescence of NGS in the forensic community, there is likely unknown potential, demonstrating the importance of research into the capabilities and limitations of this technology both for human identification and alternative forensic applications,” concludes the report.
The paper is based on primary and secondary sources, including industry literature and journal articles, related to NGS, as well as interviews with subject matter experts, including forensic science practitioners, decision-makers, researchers, educators, and vendor representatives.