Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue.

Topic: DNA strand study: unexpected flexibility

We are also addressing a question in Ask the Informant. 

For events and conferences please go to the end of the newsletter. Again, if there are any events you would like for us to mention, please send me the name and dates with a website link for further details. New posting: 18th International Symposium on Human Identification. 

In the news a topic that was addressed across the country is the fact that more and more parents are taking DNA samples of their children for identification purposes in case of a tragedy. Reasons for this increasing use of DNA collection kits are believed to be based on news reports and television shows like CSI. 

Following this story we are including a number of new and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence.

Parents collect DNA from kids in case of emergency

Fingerprints, check. Recent photograph, check. Lecture on staying away from strangers, check. DNA sample, check?

Many parents across the country are swabbing the inside of their child's mouth to get DNA as insurance in case of a kidnapping, runaway, or horrific accident, where remains, hair or blood need to be identified.

News reports about child abductions and television shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" are driving the demand, said Jerry Nance, supervisor of the forensic assistance unit of the nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"It's the CSI mentality: that DNA is going to be the answer to any problem that comes up," he said.

Missing kids found murdered or those who are never heard from make up only about 2 percent of the 850,000 kids that go missing every year, he said. Most children are found within several days or come home on their own.

Despite those numbers, private companies, police stations, orthodontists and others distribute or sell kits that include a photo, fingerprints, a cotton or wooden swab and a special envelope or sheaf in which to put the DNA. The kits cost $5 to $15, but can be as much as $60, Nance said. Some are given for free.

He said if the sample is dried properly it can last forever, but he recommends putting the sample in a freezer. Others say putting the sample in specialized filter paper in a moisture resistance pouch is the best way to store it.

DNA can help narrow down suspects, especially if hair or blood is found in a suspect's home or car, Nancy said.

Pleasant Prairie, Wis., police Chief Brian Wagner said his department created about 1,000 DNA collection kits and began offering them for free in September. Parents have picked up more than 300, he said.

Lafourche Parish, La., Sheriff Craig Webre, first vice president of the National Sheriffs' Association, said DNA collection could become standard within the next decade.

The University of North Texas System Center runs the Combined DNA Index System, which allows federal, state, and local crime labs to compare DNA profiles electronically. The cost to the parent is for the university's DNA analysis, which is done for $39.95, Chastant said.

The center's director, Art Eisenberg, who helped develop the field of DNA for human identification in the 1980s, said having the DNA in a central repository speeds up the identification process if remains are found.

"It's not knowing that is the absolute worst thing for these families," he said.

Joe Polski, chief operations officer for the International Association for Identification, which claims to be the oldest and largest forensic organization in the world, said he wouldn't use the kits but he wouldn't discourage them.

"The chances are so slim that it's questionable in my mind if it's worth the work to have it," he said. "Parents would be far better off to pay attention to what their kids are doing, who they are hanging around with."

Ed Smart said he wishes he would have known about the kits before his daughter Elizabeth was kidnapped from her Utah bedroom in June 2002. She was found alive nine months later. He said investigators took boxes of her belongings to find her DNA and didn't get a DNA sample back for weeks. He said having the sample ready could have narrowed down suspects faster.

"It is kind of like an insurance policy you hope you never use," he said.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref01.html 

New and ongoing cases involving the use of DNA evidence include:

Oklahoma - A previously convicted rapist received a life prison term Monday from Tulsa County jurors who found him guilty of raping a girl seven years ago.

Jose L. Pagan was charged in 2000 with the October 1999 rape of a girl, then age 15, at a Tulsa apartment.

An arrest warrant was issued in February 2000, and Pagan was arrested on the charge in Connecticut in early June 2005.

He has been in the Tulsa Jail since June 23, 2005.

Tulsa prosecutors originally charged him with first-degree rape and kidnapping.

While the trial was in progress last week in District Judge Tom Thornbrugh's court, a prosecutor amended the rape count from first-degree to second-degree and dismissed the kidnapping count.

Jurors convicted Pagan of second-degree rape Monday and imposed a life term that allows the possibility of parole.

The victim, who is now 22 and living in California, has said the defendant -- whom she knew by the name of "Scooby" -- attacked her and forced her to have sex with him.

Assistant District Attorney Mickey Hawkins said he believes that force was used, but by amending the allegation to second-degree rape, that issue was removed as an issue for jurors to deliberate.

Based on their ages, any sexual intercourse between Pagan and the victim would constitute second-degree rape, he said.

Pagan, 41, did not testify. When questioned by police in 1999, he asserted that he did not have sexual intercourse with the teenager and did not rape her.

Seminal fluid was recovered from the girl's underwear, and the defendant provided a mouth swab for DNA comparison.

A 2006 analysis at a private laboratory in Florida -- using a new method of DNA testing -- concluded that Pagan could not be excluded as a source of the fluid on the girl's underwear, a report shows.

During a sentencing stage, jurors learned that Pagan had been convicted of rape in Massachusetts in 1986.

Hawkins said that victim was also a 15-year-old girl.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref23.html

California - San Diego police say they have solved two sexual assaults and possibly a string of "peeping tom" incidents that have terrified women in University City for the past 18 months.

Police arrested 39-year old Teddy Baek outside his Rancho Peñasquitos home on Torrey Gardens Place Wednesday morning and booked him on charges of sexual assault and attempted burglary. 
 
They also searched his Kearny Mesa travel agency, Travel-Land, on Convoy Street. 
 
Investigators say Baek was first arrested early Tuesday morning after a woman called police to report someone lurking outside her window in University City. Police say Baek closely resembled a description of the sex assault suspect, so they placed him under surveillance. 
 
Forensic experts also tested Baek's DNA. They say he was arrested after experts determined he was a match with the person who attacked two women. 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref04.html 

Ohio - Police in Dayton said they have solved a 10-year-old slaying, and now the suspect is behind bars. 

Edith Moorehead, 20, was founded slain behind Hickorydale Elementary School in October of 1996. Now, DNA evidence has led to a suspect in the cold case. 

The Montgomery County coroner said DNA evidence from the suspect and the victim is what is linking the two together. They said Moorehead died from blunt force trauma to the head and a stab wound to the chest. 

The suspect, Lavone Hooper, 28, was indicted Tuesday on charges of rape, kidnapping and murder, police said.

Detectives said Hooper is in jail after being indicted on rape charges for an incident that happened earlier this year.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref05.html

Florida - Adeline McLaughlin, an 84-year-old widow, was sexually assaulted and smothered with a pillow in 1983. Deborah Kisor, a 31-year-old mental patient, was assaulted and strangled four years later.

The brutal killings of the two women remained unsolved for years. St. Petersburg detectives submitted DNA samples for testing in the late 1990s, but had no luck.

Now, advances in DNA technology have given police the evidence they need to arrest the man they say killed both women: Tony Ables, a 51-year-old St. Petersburg man already convicted of two other murders and currently serving a life sentence.

Police said Ables is a serial killer who may have committed more unsolved homicides.

"We do suspect there's a high probability that there's more he's responsible for than what we've been able to link him to so far," said Maj. Michael Puetz.

For now, Ables faces one additional charge of first-degree murder. Kisor's killing is not being prosecuted by the State Attorney's Office because she was involved with Ables, which complicates the case, police said.

Police said Wednesday they had closed another unrelated cold case because of new DNA analysis. Edith Marker, an 84-year-old resident of Green Mobile Home Park, was robbed and killed in 1990. The man police say killed her, Edward Pate, died of AIDS in 1992.

Puetz said advancements in DNA analysis had "opened a whole new world" to investigators.

"I don't think there's any way that Mr. Ables would have been identified as a suspect in these cases if it wasn't for the technology," Puetz said. "The technology keeps getting better and better."

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref06.html

Missouri - THE APPLEBY MURDER TRIAL - Prosecutors rest their case

What happened Monday?

•Prosecutors rested their case after presenting DNA evidence and showing jurors a 20-minute videotape in which Benjamin Appleby confessed to killing 19-year-old Ali Kemp of Leawood.

•Forensic chemist Dana Soderholm, formerly with the Johnson County Crime Lab, testified that Appleby’s DNA was found on Kemp’s T-shirt and jogging bra and also on an ointment tube and cap left near Kemp’s body at the swimming pool where the murder occurred. The likelihood that the DNA on the tube could match someone other than Appleby is 1 in 14.4 billion, Soderholm said.

•DNA tests also were conducted at the Kansas City Regional Crime Lab. Forensic analyst Lisa Dowler, who supervises the DNA section at that lab, testified there was a 1 in 2 quadrillion chance that DNA on the jogging bra matched someone other than Appleby.

•In the videotaped confession, Appleby told Leawood detectives on Nov. 8, 2004, that he “lost it” when Kemp rebuffed his sexual advances.

“I killed her,” he said. “I strangled her, I guess. I don’t know what I used. There was something laying there.”

What happens today?

•The defense begins its case. It is expected to call a pathologist who will testify about the death.

•Closing arguments probably will be heard in the afternoon. The case then will go to the jury.

What’s the case about?

•Appleby, 31, is charged with capital murder and attempted rape in the killing of Kemp on June 18, 2002, at a Leawood swimming pool.

•Defense attorney Angela Keck surprised many in the courtroom last week when she acknowledged in her opening statement that Appleby killed Kemp. Keck maintains, however, that Appleby did not kill Kemp intentionally and that he should be found guilty of a lesser crime than capital murder.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref07.html

Texas - A man charged in May in the 1990 Missouri City murder of Kim Louise Wildman was arrested by Houston police on Friday on a charge of capital murder stemming from a 1994 case.

Edward McGregor, 33, was arrested at about 7:28 a.m. on Friday and charged with capital murder in the death of Edwina Barnum, 23, who was found shot and strangled in her Houston apartment in 1994, police said.

Missouri City police assisted Houston police in the arrest, in the 2500 block of Village Square Drive, where McGregor was apparently living with his family. Missouri City Police Capt. John Bailey said McGregor was arrested without incident.

Bailey was unsure where McGregor is being held. He had been free on $250,000 bond since May, after his May 1 arrest in the Kim Wildman murder.

Houston detectives could not immediately be reached for comment on the case, nor could McGregor or his attorney. According to news reports, DNA evidence linked McGregor to the Barnum murder.

The Barnum case is the fourth murder in which police say they suspect McGregor.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref08.html 
 

Illinois - A partially eaten chicken dinner -- the evidence that finally led to charges in the 1993 Brown's Chicken massacre -- will be presented to jurors in the upcoming trial of one of two men accused in the slayings, a judge ruled Friday.

Attorneys for Juan Luna argued vehemently Friday that evidence connected to the meal was lost, mishandled and thrown away. But Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan, in a terse ruling, indicated he found no evidence of blatant negligence or intentional rule violations in the handling of the chicken evidence.

The ruling is key because prosecutors say Luna's DNA was found on the chicken dinner found inside a garbage can during the investigation into the Jan. 8, 1993, slayings of seven people inside the Palatine eatery.

"It's almost mind-boggling," said attorney Allan Sincox, describing the way the chicken evidence was handled in the days after the slayings.

Sincox also noted that one scientist who examined the chicken bones in the mid-1990s threw out one bone after he was unable to extract any DNA from it. Another scientist handled the bones without wearing gloves, Sincox said.

And some chicken bone evidence got lost on its way from a State Police crime lab to the Palatine Police Department, Sincox noted.

But Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Alan Spellberg argued that defense experts, before they knew the evidence had been lost, said they had no interest in testing it for DNA.

Prosecutors also said investigators weren't deliberately mishandling evidence but had no idea science would someday allow DNA extraction from saliva on a chicken bone.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref09.html

Alabama - After almost nine years, police say they have the man they think is responsible for a burglary and rape of a Daleville woman.

DNA samples were taken from former Daleville resident, 38-year-old Michael Joseph Ingram when he was sent to prison in Winnfield, Louisiana on rape charges.

That sample came back as a match in Daleville.

“I think it's really great the system has worked. The suspect, if he did commit the crime has been caught and identified. It lets them know that we don't give up on cases like this where somebody's been attacked,” said Sgt. Harvey Mathis of Daleville Police Investigator.

Daleville Police will go to Louisiana later this month to interview Ingram on the charges and serve the Dale County felony warrants.

Both the burglary and the rape are class a felonies which could carry a sentence of up to 99 years.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref10.html

Florida - The Brevard County Sheriff’s Department has identified the remains of a decomposed murder victim from October 2005.  
 
John B. Gavin, 67, of Lakeland was murdered and his body buried off of Carole Avenue in Port St. John more than a year ago. Investigators estimate that Gavin’s body was buried two to three months before the discovery, which made identification nearly impossible.  
 
The remains were sent to the University of Florida in October where a forensic artist reconstructed what the victim may have looked like. Now police are using Gavin’s driver’s license photo, which they believe was updated recently before his death.  
 
Ultimately, it was Gavin’s robbery conviction in 1997 that allowed investigators to identify him. Enough DNA was extracted to run through a nationwide database, which positively identified Gavin.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref11.html

Texas - A capital murder charge is pending against a 33-year-old man in connection with the 1994 shooting and strangulation of a woman in her southeast Houston apartment, authorities said.

Edward George McGregor, 33, who is charged in Fort Bend County with murder in the 1990 slaying of a Missouri City woman, is now the prime suspect in the death of Edwina Latriss Barnum, 23, of Houston, police spokesman John Cannon said today.

Cannon said McGregor was linked to the 1994 death of Barnum through DNA evidence.

Police also have called McGregor a suspect in the deaths of two other women: Danielle L. Subjects, 28, who was killed Aug. 5, 2005, and Mandy R. Rubin, 25, who was slain Feb. 4. Both were strangled and beaten in their southwest Houston apartments. McGregor has not been charged in those cases.

McGregor, who was released on $250,000 bond in the Fort Bend County case in May, was arrested this morning at his Missouri City home, Cannon said.

In the Fort Bend County case, McGregor was charged with the April 17, 1990, stabbing death of Kim Wildman, 38, who was attacked in her Missouri City home just two doors down from McGregor's house.

McGregor was never a suspect in the Wildman case until Houston police approached Missouri City police, saying McGregor was a suspect in two Houston killings. Houston police obtained a DNA sample from McGregor and that sample was matched to the one taken from Wildman's body 16 years ago.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref12.html

Oklahoma - DNA submitted by probation violator has led to rape charges against the man for the 1999 assault of a 9-year-old girl.

Kenneth Johnson faces six counts of rape, sodomy and kidnapping. He's accused of abducting and raping the girl in southwest Oklahoma City in December 1999 as she walked home from a friend's house. 

Johnson was required to submit a D-N-A sample after being sent to prison in February 2005 for violating probation. He has previous felony convictions for burglary, embezzlement and drug possession.

The D-N-A was later matched to D-N-A evidence recovered from the victim.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref13.html

California - A Washoe District Court jury Thursday found a California man guilty of murdering an 80-year-old Verdi woman in 2001.

Judge Connie Steinehimer ordered the jury to return to hear arguments about sentencing, including the death penalty, for Joaquin B. Hill, 27, who also uses the name Kiven Johnson, who was convicted of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon of a person 65 or older.

The case remained unsolved until 2005, when DNA evidence linked Mosconi's slaying to Hill.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref14.html

Wisconsin - A Brown County jury took just short of two hours to convict Leon Tart of abducting and raping a now 23-year-old Green Bay woman.

But the panel of eight men and four women stopped short of convicting Tart, 45, of De Pere, of attempted murder — instead opting for a lesser charge of first-degree reckless injury.

The move reduced the potential penalty from 126 years in prison to about 78 years for convictions on charges of false imprisonment, first-degree sexual assault and first-degree reckless injury.

Tart picked up the woman as she was walking home from a downtown bar early on Oct. 1, 2005. He drove her to rural Wrightstown, cut off her clothes, sliced her neck and forced her to perform oral sex.

After the sexual assault, the woman was shoved to the ground where she was able to kick Tart in the legs and run into the woods. She made her way to a nearby house where the occupants called 911.

The trial included a day and a half of testimony and included DNA evidence linking Tart to the sexual assault and the victim's in-court identification of Tart as her attacker.

Sherry Culhane, a forensic scientist with the Wisconsin Crime Lab, testified that she found sperm cells in a swab collected from the victim. The DNA in the sample was 11 trillion times more likely to have come from the victim and Tart than from the victim and another random individual.

Tart is expected back in McKay's court for sentencing Jan. 19.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref15.html 

Chicago - A Cook County judge agreed Thursday to release a man serving a 20-year-prison sentence for a 1992 rape that DNA tests showed he didn't commit.

''That's not justice,'' Circuit Judge Stanley Sacks said of Marlon Pendleton's imprisonment. ''It's an injustice.''

Sacks vacated Pendleton's sentence and ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond for a separate sexual assault for which he's already served his full prison term, setting in motion a release from prison that might come as early as Thursday.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref16.html

Indiana - Prosecutors and defense attorneys disagree over the meaning of DNA test results, in a 43-year-old Terre Haute man's murder trial.

Kevin Hampton is charged with murder and rape, in the 2000 strangling death of 18-year-old Dianna Lehman.

He's also charged with strangling two other Terre Haute women in 2004.

Hampton's trial in Lehman's murder continues Wednesday.

Prosecutors say the DNA evidence proves Hampton had sex with Lehman, shortly before she died - and other evidence shows it was rape.

But Hampton's defense attorney says, jurors will have to consider the possibility the woman had sex with more than one man before she died.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref17.html

Florida - Tracking DNA from blood found at the scene of a burglary last year led Fort Myers police department officers to a suspect. 
 
The man was found in jail. 
 
The robbery happened July 3, 2005, at the Valero gas station at 2449 S.R. 82 in Fort Myers. Detectives collected blood from broken glass at the scene and sent it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for analysis. 
 
On Nov. 9, the FDLE notified the police department that there was a match. 
 
Charged with burglary Monday is Guillermo Duran, 35, a transient. Duran was located in the Lee County jail. He is in jail charged with another burglary, that of a Hess station at 4887 Palm Beach Blvd., Fort Myers.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref19.html

Colorado - Nearly two years ago, Denver prosecutors charted new territory, obtaining the city's first arrest warrant based solely on a man's DNA profile.

On Monday, their efforts paid off as a serial burglar was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Terre Jefferson, 35, was ordered to serve the time for his role in three break-ins, dating back to 2002. In all of the cases, sleeping women awoke to find him sitting on their bed or standing nearby, fondling himself.

Jefferson would sometimes ask the victims if he could smell or lick their feet, prosecutor Dawn Weber said. He went after women who were alone at home, she said.

"There is a stream of the same kind of behavior," Weber said. "He poses a great threat to the community."

Jefferson pleaded guilty to burglary and indecent exposure in connection with the cases, which occurred in August 2002, July 2004 and August 2004.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref20.html

California - A California man has been charged in the unsolved murder nearly four decades ago of a 14-year-old Central Catholic High School student.

Robert Baxter Bowman, 70, of Riverside, Calif., is charged with aggravated murder in an arrest warrant filed in Toledo Municipal Court.

He is accused of kidnapping, raping, and murdering Eileen Adams, a freshmen at Central Catholic, in West Toledo on Dec. 18, 1967, some 39 years ago. That was the same day she was reported missing when she didn't arrive at a relative's residence after school.

Six weeks later, the Sylvania Township teenager's frozen body was found wrapped in a mattress cover and rug in a field in Whiteford Township, Mich., on Jan. 30, 1968. An electric cord was tied around the rug. Eileen was clothed, but her shoes and coat were missing. Her wrists and ankles were bound with drapery cord. A two-strand telephone cord was looped around her neck and tied to her ankles. 

Police decided to re-examine the unsolved case after a relative of Adams brought it up during a dinner conversation with an off-duty Toledo officer, according to Toledo police.

Cold case detectives were able to use DNA evidence gathered at the crime scene where the body was found in Southeastern Michigan to link Bowman to the case. They used a technique called reverse DNA by testing Bowman's ex-wife and daughter, who were located in Florida.

Cold case detectives were then able to identify semen found on the victim as Bowman's.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref21.html

In the last issue of The DNA Informant, one of the news stories addressed the use of familial searches, which is what this next case is based on: 

England - A rapist who escaped justice for 20 years has been jailed after being traced by a pioneering DNA technique. Russell Bradbury, 50, now of Shayfields Drive in Wythenshawe, Manchester, was not on the national DNA database.  

However, a member of his family was, and when Northumbria Police revisited a 1986 North Tyneside rape case, crime scene DNA revealed a partial match.

As a result Bradbury was tracked down, pleaded guilty, and on Wednesday was sentenced to six and a half years.  

The attack happened in October 1986 when a 22-year-old woman was returning to her home in Killingworth after a night out with friends.  

Despite an extensive investigation, police drew a blank.  

Almost two decades later, the case was revisited by detectives from the Northumbria force's Major Crime Review section, which incorporates the former Operation Phoenix.  

Evidence taken from the victim was analysed using a cutting-edge technique known as familial searching.  

This revealed a partial match with other profiles on the database, which were similar enough to suggest those named were close relatives, and this led to Bradbury.  

For more on this story, please go to the link below: 

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref24.html

Did You Know?

Topic: DNA strand study: unexpected flexibility

U.S. scientists have completed what they believe is the first simulation that explores the full range of motions of a DNA strand of 147 base pairs.

That length, say the Virginia Tech researchers, is required to form the fundamental unit of DNA packing in living cells -- the nucleosome.

The scientists said sequencing the human genome -- determining the order of DNA building blocks -- has not completely solved the code of how DNA directs various cellular processes. In addition to the sequence of the base pairs, the instructions are in the packaging -- how DNA is folded within a cell.

The Virginia Tech scientists said they used novel methodology and the university's System X supercomputer to conduct their experiment. And they found, contrary to a long-held belief that DNA is hard to bend, the simulation shows in crisp atomic detail that DNA is considerably more flexible than commonly thought.

The study in the December issue of the Biophysical Journal is also available at biophysj.org/cgi/content/full/91/11/4121.

Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_33_dec_06/vol33_ref22.html

Ask the Informant

Question:  

Are you aware of any information available on the likelihood of DNA transfer through touch, from one individual, or object touched by that individual, to another individual? 

Answer:  

Information on this topic can be found in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (November 1999 article) which is entitled "A Systematic Analysis of Secondary DNA Transfer" and talks about how DNA can be transfer from person to person directly from contact. Please see the article abstract below: 

The Nature letter by R. van Oorschot and M. Jones (1) addressed two topics: the primary transfer of DNA from person to person or to various objects, and the secondary transfer of DNA through an intermediary.

Forensic scientists have described the primary transfer of DNA and other biological evidence for many years. However, the authors also reported detecting secondary transfer of DNA from an object to a person's hands, which could adversely affect DNA typing in the forensic context. The prospect of secondary transfer raises questions of interest to both the legal and forensic communities. Therefore, we sought to evaluate parameters potentially leading to secondary DNA transfer. Our data do not support the conclusion that secondary transfer will compromise DNA typing results under typical forensic conditions. 

Source: http://journalsip.astm.org/JOURNALS/FORENSIC/PAGES/JFS44632.htm 

Events and conferences for 2007 that may of interest to you include: 

18th International Symposium on Human Identification - October 1-4, 2007

Renaissance Hollywood Hotel - Hollywood, California

Web site: http://www.promega.com/applications/hmnid/ 

AAFS – American Academy of Forensic Sciences – 59th Annual Meeting - February 19 through 24, 2007 in San Antonio, Texas

http://www.aafs.org/default.asp?section_id=meetings&page_id=aafs_annual_meeting. 

AFDAA - The Association of Forensic DNA Analysts and Administrators - January 25 and 26, 2007 in Austin, Texas. The AFDAA is currently looking for speakers. If you are interested in giving a presentation, please contact Joe Warren at jwarren@hsc.unt.edu. For more information on the AFDAA please go to www.AFDAA.org. 
 

The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. 

DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs.  Our primary mission is to help our clients identify criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results.  To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States.  We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport. 

DNA Labs International’s services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts.  Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review.   
 

Editor: Karen Daurie

Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com  

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