28-Nov-2006

New York State Police to Deploy FBI Approved TrueAllele^® Expert System for DNA Review

Automated TrueAllele® Technology to Help Fight Crime

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The FBI's National DNA Index System (NDIS) has approved Cybergenetics' TrueAllele® Databank expert system for convicted offender profiles. This FBI acceptance was based on a comprehensive scientific validation study conducted by the New York State Police (NYSP), and submitted by them to NDIS this year. Cybergenetics' TrueAllele computer system, which automatically interprets DNA data without error, is in the first group to ever receive such FBI approval

Four years ago, the NYSP Forensic Identification Center in Albany, NY was the first to submit an expert system validation study to NDIS. The NYSP later published their groundbreaking scientific validation in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, where it became the foundation for the FBI's expert system validation standards. Writing in 2002, Dr. Barry Duceman, Director of Biological Sciences at the NYSP FIC, predicted that the time people spent sifting through DNA items would be reduced by an automated genotyping system. He observed that "software solutions are emerging that can be integrated into an automated approach." He also noted that "the goal of automation is not simply productivity, but an attendant increase in data reproducibility and reliability."

The NYSP FIC processes both casework DNA from crime scenes, and databank DNA from convicted offenders. When a criminal leaves biological material at a crime scene, this unknown DNA can be compared against the DNA databank profiles in order to identify the perpetrator. Cybergenetics TrueAllele Databank system accelerates the construction of DNA databanks by eliminating virtually all of the human steps currently involved in the painstaking manual review of DNA data.

"We are pleased to see the New York State Police finally able to deploy our TrueAllele expert system," says Dr. Mark Perlin, CEO of Cybergenetics. "Careful human review of one plate of DNA databank samples takes five hours of examination and cross checking, from data generation to NDIS upload. Our workflow studies show how a TrueAllele computer can reduce the total human involvement to just five minutes. And, as multiple scientific validation studies have demonstrated, Cybergenetics automated TrueAllele computer process is more accurate than current manual approaches."

Conventional DNA data review is a labor-intensive task that requires human examination of every data element and involves significant time and expense. Cybergenetics automated intelligent TrueAllele systems perform this computational task rapidly, accurately and cost effectively, enabling forensic scientists to focus on the DNA science, instead of high-dimensional mathematics. First introduced in the United Kingdom six years ago, TrueAllele Databank (System 2) accurately processed over a million DNA profiles, reducing DNA review staffing requirements more than ten-fold, and decreasing turnaround time from two weeks to eight hours. The TrueAllele technology is protected by US patents 5,541,067, 5,580,728, 5,876,933, 6,054,268, 6,750,011 and 6,807,490; international patents are pending.