HWN Suggests

Forensics and DNA: How genetics can help solve crimes

Forensic science, or the use of scientific methods to investigate crimes, has helped solve cases in the criminal justice system for centuries. Advances in DNA sequencing technology over the past few decades, however, has led to a surge in both convictions and exonerations for many crimes.

read full article

Featured

 DNA in the dock: how flawed techniques send innocent people to prison

Many juries believe crime-scene DNA evidence is watertight – but this is far from the case. As forensic technology gets ever more sophisticated, experts are only just realising how difficult interpreting the evidence can be.

 Millions of Americans Could Be Identified Using Consumer Genetic Databases—Even If They've Never Taken a DNA Test

The proliferation of these tests has also given rise to crowdsourced online databases that allow people to anonymously upload their results for further analysis and ancestry research.

Articles of Interest

A new type of genetic profiling promises cleverer, better-looking children

Debate about using science to create “bespoke” human beings of one sort or another usually revolves around the ideas of genetic engineering and cloning. People worry about these for two reasons. One is practical. The tinkering involved could end up harming the resulting individual. The other is a more visceral dislike of interfering with the process of reproduction, perhaps best encapsulated in the phrase “playing God”.

DNA Databases Are Boon to Police But Menace to Privacy, Critics Say

“I believe, 100%, that DNA is the greatest tool ever given to law enforcement to find the truth, whatever that is,” said Anne Marie Schubert, independent district attorney of Sacramento County, California, where the suspected Golden State Killer was arrested. But law enforcement’s use of the DNA databases has opened another front in the growing battle over digital privacy. Should third parties — in this case, police — have access to personal data people generate by using consumer technology? And should investigators be allowed to use the technique to solve all crimes, or only the most violent ones?

DNA Evidence Is Not Foolproof

Believing it blindly could put the wrong people in jail.

DNA is often used in solving crimes. But how does DNA profiling actually work?

DNA profiling, as it has been known since 1994, has been used in the criminal justice system since the late 1980s, and was originally termed “DNA fingerprinting”. The DNA in every human is very similar – up to 99.9% identical, in fact. But strangely, about 98% of the DNA in our cells is not gene-related (i.e. has no known function).

DNA Profiling in Forensic Science: A Review

DNA is present in most of the cells in our body, which is unique in each and every individual, and we leave a trail of it everywhere we go. This has become an advantage for forensic investigators who use DNA to draw conclusion in identification of victim and accused in crime scenes. This review described the use of genetic markers in forensic investigation and their limitations.

DNA Profiling Moves From Forensics to Diagnostics

Television series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation familiarized viewers with advances in forensic science that allow investigators to detect minute amounts of a person’s unique DNA sequence found at a crime scene and analyze it to implicate or exonerate a suspect. Similar DNA technologies can also detect and analyze small numbers of cancer cells in blood.

Forensic DNA profiling might be about to take a big leap forward. Are we ready?

Advances in epigenetics mean incredibly detailed profiles of criminal suspects might soon be reality. Is the legal system ready to use this information?

Genetic Profiling and Predictive Policing Are Taking Us to the Pre-Crime Future

Philip K. Dick's vision of a future in which people are arrested for crimes they haven't yet committed is so plausible that researchers at Stanford sat down to talk about it. The takeaway was simple: DNA profiling is changing the face of law enforcement, and the potential for abuse is growing.

How Is DNA Profiling Used to Solve Crimes?

The road to modern DNA profiling has been long, and it has taken forensic scientists decades of work and fine tuning to develop the highly accurate testing and analysis procedures available today.

STR Typing ; Sometimes Useless Junk Sequences Become Useful

The year 1984 may be considered as an unfortunate year for criminals when a British Geneticist named Alec Jeffreys developed a technique known as DNA fingerprinting to identify different individuals. From 1986 DNA fingerprinting was widely used in the field of forensic science and criminal investigation.

The Dark Side of DNA Databases

The “match statistics” generated by analyzing large troves of DNA information are easy to misinterpret.

The End of the Age of Paternity Secrets

A historian of fatherhood wonders whether the rapid embrace of consumer DNA testing will be seen as a positive development in the future.

Traces of Crime: How New York’s DNA Techniques Became Tainted

The city’s medical examiner has been a pioneer in analyzing complex DNA samples. But two methods were recently discontinued, raising questions about thousands of cases.

Your DNA, Your Diet: How Nutrition Is Being Personalized

At-home tests are helping people learn more about their bodies, but the science is still evolving.

Resources

6 Ways DNA Profiling Matters

Why does DNA profiling matter? There are many situations in both the public realm (legal, governmental) and private realm when uniquely identifying individuals or family relationships is critically important.