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Better DNA Hair Analysis for Catching Criminals

posted by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @06:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the Doctor-Evil-and-Mini-Me-just-laughed dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket suggests the following from PhysOrg:

A simple, lower-cost new method for DNA profiling of human hairs developed by the University of Adelaide should improve opportunities to link criminals to serious crimes.

The researchers have modified existing laboratory methods and been able to produce accurate DNA profiles from trace amounts at a much higher success rate.

"Technological advancements over the last 10 years have allowed police and forensic scientists to profile crime-scene DNA from ever smaller and more challenging samples collected from fingerprints, skin cells, saliva and hairs," says Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, Deputy Director with the University's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.

"DNA profiling of human hairs is critical to solving many serious crimes but most hairs found at crime scenes contain very little DNA because it has been severely dehydrated as part of the hair growth process. This makes DNA testing of hairs a real challenge."

[...] Lead-author Assistant Professor Dennis McNevin, from the University of Canberra, says: "Our simple modifications will allow this trace DNA to be analysed in a standard forensic laboratory with improved success rates of DNA profiling and without increased error rates.

"This is very important in forensic science as false positive results can lead to incorrect identifications and poor outcomes in the judicial system."

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:45PM (#210890)

    TFA doesn't mention anything about what they do. Anyone track down the research paper?

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday July 18 2015, @11:23PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday July 18 2015, @11:23PM (#210898) Journal

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25999132 [nih.gov]

    Using telogen hairs-a common source of LTDNA-and matched reference DNA, the LCN method produced the highest number of concordant and non-concordant (i.e., dropped-in) alleles. In comparison, the reduced reaction volume with increased Taq polymerase yielded more full and concordant DNA profiles (all alleles combined) and less off-ladder alleles from a broad range of input DNA. In addition, this method resulted in less non-concordant alleles than LCN and no more than for standard PCR, which suggests that it may be preferred over increased PCR cycles for LTDNA analysis, either with or without consensus profiling and statistical modelling.

    CONCLUSIONS: Overall, this study highlights the importance and benefit of optimizing PCR conditions and developing improved laboratory methods to amplify and analyze LTDNA.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:49AM

      by captain normal (2205) on Sunday July 19 2015, @03:49AM (#210958)

      So if you are planning some type of crime sneak around behind a barber shop and/or a hair salon to grab some strands of hair. When you commit the crime wear a clean room suit to keep your hair and skin cells away from the scene and scatter the copped hair around. Then you've fooled CSI.

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