TrueAllele and the Guthrie Mixture: Solving DNA Evidence
Cybergenetics free DNA data screening can unmix ten unknown contributors
PITTSBURGH, PA, November 11, 2026
In this week’s news about the Nancy Guthrie case, we read how Labs Race to Untangle DNA Mixed From Four People. Investigators were told the remaining evidence presents a difficult scientific challenge. “The sample is a mixture from as many as four people,” the Pima County Sheriff’s Office told ABC News. “It is not clear that the technology even exists yet to separate it.”
Yes, it does. Cybergenetics TrueAllele® technology separates complex DNA mixture data into component genotypes, one for each person who left their DNA in the evidence. A 2015 study demonstrated the computer’s separation of DNA mixtures with five unknown people. A 2020 study showed TrueAllele’s ability to separate mixtures of ten unknown people.
Cybergenetics contacted Guthrie investigators from the outset, offering free TrueAllele screening of the DNA mixture evidence data. In February 2026, a lab thanked us for reaching out about the case, saying they would keep us in mind for the future.
Perhaps the future is now. Recent news reports there are five or six labs working on the Guthrie mixture. TrueAllele can combine data from these different labs and kits to preserve all the DNA information and help make the identification. Like we did twenty years ago when identifying victim remains in the World Trade Center disaster.
For over twenty-five years, Cybergenetics has accurately, objectively, and automatically separated complex DNA mixtures. The company invented “probabilistic genotyping” (PG) that uses all the DNA data and considers all possible genotype solutions. But unlike other PG software, TrueAllele’s information-preserving genotyping (IPG) always gets the answer.
Pittsburgh-based Cybergenetics was founded in 1994. Crime labs use TrueAllele to solve their hardest DNA cases. Cybergenetics has assisted over 600 agencies, including the FBI, on over 1,600 cases involving challenging DNA. TrueAllele has been extensively tested and is accepted by courts as reliable evidence. It has helped exonerate 18 innocent men.