Preserving DNA Information

M.W. Perlin and K.E. Williams, "Preserving DNA information", National Association of Medical Examiners 2010 Annual Meeting, Cleveland, OH, 2-Oct-2010.

Talk

PowerPoint presentation with live audio recording of the National Association of Medical Examiners 2010 talk.

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Abstract

Medical examiners carefully preserve biological specimens in order to achieve the best scientific results. And they expect DNA laboratories to extract maximal identification information from those specimens. Indeed, DNA lab work is exemplary. But there is wide variation in the interpretation of DNA data, ranging over ten orders of magnitude on the same sample. With low-template or mixed DNA, many labs usually fail to produce a reportable match score. But computer interpretation most often succeeds. This talk presents these evidence preservation issues in the context of a brutal homicide case having little DNA material, but tremendous implications for 21st century forensic science.