ISFG 2022 Panel Discussion on the Evolution of Forensic Genetics
A group of global experts gathered at the recent 29th Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG) to discuss the evolution of forensic genetics. The panel discussion, part of a lunch symposium hosted by Thermo Fisher Scientific, focused on several key topics: •Touch DNA interpretation and activity level propositions •Haploid markers •Alternate markers, and new technologies • Responding effectively to mass disasters and documenting war crimes •Expanded use of DNA databases Panel speakers include: •Peter Gill, PhD- Professor Emeritus, Department of Forensic Sciences and the Department of Clinical Medicine, Oslo University, Norway •Adrian Linacre, PhD- Chair of Forensic Science, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University •Christopher Syn Kiu Choong, PhD- Applied Sciences Group Director, Health Sciences Authority, Singapore •Marta Diepenbroek, PhD- Post‑doc, Institute of Legal Medicine, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany •Tim Schellberg- President, Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs •Erin Sweeny- Vice President, Forensic Operations, Bode Technology •Christian G. Westring, PhD (moderator)- Director, Center for Crime, Forensics, and Security Analysis, Purdue University Northwest
Hello and welcome to ISFG 2022 Panel Discussion on the Evolution of Forensic
Genetics, brought
to you by Forensic and sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
My name is Michelle Taylor, Editor-in-Chief of Forensic and I will be your
moderator today.
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Recently, a group of global experts gathered at the 29th Congress of the
International
Society for Forensic Genetics, also known as ISFG, to discuss the evolution of
forensic
genetics during a panel.
The panel discussion focused on several key topics, including touch a DNA
interpretation
and activity-level propositions, tabloid markers, alternative markers, and new
technologies,
responding effectively to mass disasters and documenting war crimes, and, of
course,
expanded use of DNA databases.
Today, forensic, in partnership with ThermoFisher Scientific, will present that
exclusive panel
in addition to a live Q&A with the experts immediately following.
The moderator of the panel is Christian G. Westring, director of the Center for
Crime,
Forensic, and Security Analysis at Purdue University Northwest.
Dr. Westring was the president of this year's ISFG.
As a forensic geneticist, Dr. Westring has more than 20 years' experience in
forensic
science.
His background includes leading multi-site laboratory systems in forensic
biology, chemistry,
toxicology, firearms and tool marks, latent prints, and crime scene
investigation.
As a quality manager, he was also responsible for the laboratory's acc
reditation program.
In addition to his duties as a forensic scientist, he has also held several
academic positions
in forensic genetics.
Dr. Westring has an active research program and is a contributing member to
several professional
organizations.
Together with the University of Copenhagen and the Danish National Police, he
has also
developed an improved process for the analysis and detection of spermatozoic in
sexual assault
evidence.
Now, I will leave you and Dr. Westring's hands as he introduces the rest of the
expert
team, and they kick off today's riveting panel.
Thank you for the introduction and thank you for the opportunity to moderate
this session
today.
I recall several months back when J.T. and Shireen called me and asked me to do
this
and presented the questions and topics of today's panel discussion.
I was particularly excited to see how they mirrored much of the activity that
was happening
here at ISF G. They did not know.
They didn't have access to that data, but the number one workshop at this
conference
was the contact traces workshop.
It was the first to sell out.
I'm sure that probably everybody in this room would have tried to get into it
had we
had a capacity for it.
And that was the first topic of discussion today was going to be on touch DNA.
So you could see there was a lot of parts of money there.
So first and foremost, I will welcome Peter Gill to the stage.
Peter is Professor of Emitters at the Department of Forensic Sciences in Oslo
University Hospital
and the Department of Clinical Medicine in Oslo, Norway.
Next up, Adrian Linnaker, Chair of Forensic Science, College of Science and
Engineering,
Linder's University.
Next up, Chris Sin, Applied Sciences Group Director, Health Sciences Authority,
Singapore.
Marta Deatonbach, Postdoc Institute of Legal Medicine, Ludwig Maximilian
University of Munich,
Germany.
Next up, Aaron Sweeney, Vice President, Forensic Operations, Bodie Technology.
And last but not least, Tim Schilberg, President Gordon Thomas Honeywell,
Governmental Affairs.
Welcome.
So as I said in my intro, the first area, first topic of discussion that we're
going
to queue up here is going to be for Peter and for Adrian.
And it's on touch DNA interpretation and activity level propositions.
So maybe Adrian, you can start us off.
Much of your research has been focused on increased recovery of touch DNA
profiles from crime
scene items.
What methodologies are most valuable to increase the opportunity of generating
good quality
profiles from touch DNA.
In a previous existence, I used to go to crime scenes.
Blood pattern was my big thing.
I was based in Glasgow for 17 years.
And you know, we had a bit of a crime problem.
I'd go round and do my blood pattern.
I'd do some swabbing.
Take the swabs back.
These in the early days, when we used to do the stuff ourselves and extract,
quant and
find nothing.
And that's the nature of a lot of touch DNA.
And I noticed some really good posters here on touch DNA from cartridge cases.
And a few days ago I was at the Alcohol Farms Tobacco People talking to them
about their
touch DNA success.
And they're very good.
They're the best you can do.
But it's still very low.
That's the bottom line.
Now, I would say I'm at a panelist with people here who do, I mean, I use Ver
ifier Plus
brilliant kit for STR typing.
And Peter developed software programs.
And I work with Duncan Taylor.
So all those things are really good.
But what I would say is that very little has ever been developed on the swabs
and the tapes.
Now there's a good poster on that as well.
But most of them are pretty inefficient.
That's the bottom line.
Right?
I mean, the same swabs that we use in South Australia as ones I used in 1994.
Why?
Now that's the problem.
I think rubbish in rubbish out.
And unless you get really good samples for collecting, that's the problem.
And very little has been done on getting really good swabs.
Most of the swabs we test are very good at collecting, but not releasing.
Or it's the other way around.
Now, coming back to answer your question.
So if I were to touch this, unfortunately you touched this for the first time,
the thing
is with this sort of thing, you can't see where I've touched.
So if you're going to do swabbing, as I used to do at crime scenes, you don't
know if you're
collecting or not.
All right?
So therefore, a lot of stuff is done blind.
And also, what is it on your hands?
Large DNA.
The thing is that we still don't know exactly what this stuff is.
It's broken down keratinocytes, cornea sites, and free DNA in various amounts.
So coming back to one end of it is what's on your hand is already broken down
material.
What do you all do?
You all put it through an extraction process.
Because that's largely what you have to do if you live in this country, but not
elsewhere.
Right.
It's already free DNA.
Why are you isolating DNA, which is already free?
You don't need to do it.
So an awful lot of what you can do with touch DNA is just put it straight in
the PCR.
And the buffer systems are brilliant and will overcome inhibition, and we get
really
good profiles from touch DNA by direct PCR.
Works brilliantly.
The other thing, of course, coming back to our research, poster 250, is we've
been doing
a lot of work and actually using nucleic binding dyes, and you can see DNA.
So if I were to spray onto this thing in a few seconds, within 10 seconds, I
could see
where I've touched, like account the cells.
I could remove the cells I could see them before and after.
So there are really good ways of trying to improve this stuff.
Okay.
So it is a problem of a moment.
I think there's a really good post-structure about getting DNA from cartridge
cases and
brass.
Now, are there ways of overcoming that?
And that's what our research is all about, and improving those methodologies.
I'm going to supplement that with a follow-up to this, and Peter, this is for
you.
What are the best practices that you can recommend that labs take into
consideration
when they weigh this evidence along the lines of method transfer, activity
level, and mixture
analysis?
Well, first of all, I think it's important to mention that the statistic that
we obtain
from the stain analysis is completely different to the statistic, which we may
report if we
are interested in the how, why, or when the material became evidential.
And to look at this kind of thing, we need to be aware of activity level.
Many of you may not be very familiar with activity level, but it is becoming
quite a
well-researched field now.
I think it is still fairly young, and I think many labs are still not getting
into this.
So what do we need to do to be able to report activity level?
Well, the first thing that we need to do is to become trained and preferably
accredited,
and that there are online training courses, for example, the Lausanne
University Run Online
Training courses.
And this will help considerably, I think, in helping you to understand the
theory.
However, I think that we actually need to do more to develop a framework, and
that framework
is not just the scientists, but I think we need to include lawyers and judges
in this
as well, because it is very important that all parts of the criminal justice
system are
aware of what it is that we are trying to do.
And I think it is difficult for scientists to act on their own in this respect.
Of course, we use the likelihood ratio framework, as with everything else, the
likelihood ratio,
the framework underpins everything we do.
So to do activity level reporting requires that we have some knowledge of the
case circumstances.
And very often in cases, and especially when they are low template cases, for
example,
the kind of thing that Adrian was talking about, the question often is not the
identity
or the donor of the DNA, but the argument may well be, well, how did it
actually get there?
How did it become evidence?
Did the DNA become evidence because the suspect assaulted the victim?
Or was it because they had some sort of social contact?
Maybe they went out and had a drink together the previous evening, and there
was an opportunity
there for secondary or even primary transfer at that time.
So at activity level, we have to evaluate the evidence with respect to these
case circumstances.
And of course, there will be two sets of case circumstances.
There will be the version according to the prosecution, and there will be a
version according
to the defense.
And it is the responsibility of the scientist to understand the positions of
the prosecution
and the defense in order to make his or her evaluation of the evidence.
And again, to do this is necessary to have some discussions wherever possible
with both
the prosecution and the defense to find out what their positions are.
The scientist's job really is to be a referee.
We have to be completely unbiased, of course.
We don't support the prosecution or the defense, but we sit in the middle and
we
effectively balance the evidence or we evaluate the evidence on behalf of both
of the parties.
Now, the amazing thing this is all bit too complicated to do, but there are
implications
in not doing it.
And this is a really serious issue because the problem of not alerting the
judge or the
jury to the issues of activity level means that it won't be featured within the
trial.
What I mean by that is suppose you go to court and you give your statistic a
one in a billion
or whatever it is, and then you just leave your evidence at that, then you're
not giving
the court the information it needs to decide whether that statistic is relevant
in the
context of, say, secondary transfer, like the social contact or whether the
transfer was
because of the actual criminal event itself.
So actually leaving it to one side is not really an option.
You really do have to discuss activity level at court because it's a limitation
of what
we can do at the sub-source level, which is the donor, which is a completely
different
question.
And that has to be stressed to the court.
The final thing is, well, okay, so how am I going to report an activity level?
What it requires is experiments.
You can either do your own experiments or you can draw the literature to find
out what
experiments individuals have done.
And the idea of these experiments is to discover levels of transfer given
various propositions,
given often you would look at a direct transfer versus secondary transfer.
What is the probability of observing a trace if you have a secondary transfer
event?
What is the probability if you have a direct transfer event?
And these probability difference will be different.
And this is how we can construct our likelihood ratios.
But to really just to conclude, as I said at the beginning, it does require
training,
education, not just scientists, but also judiciary, lawyers, and also defense
experts,
of course.
And so this is a good segue to what are your recommendations on how to report
and testify
to the results?
Well, the report would follow from the likelihood ratio assessment, assuming
that you can make
it.
So the likelihood ratio framework is very well established.
And the nice thing about it is that it's universal.
So the likelihood ratio would first of all state your propositions.
The suspect assaulted the victim, something like that.
For the prosecution and for the defense, the proposition would be the suspect
and the victim
only had social contact.
And then you would carry out the analysis.
Of course, you would have to either disclose your data or make clear where the
data have
come from.
That's important.
So the court needs to know the source of your information.
And then you could construct the likelihood ratio.
The evidence is X times more likely if social contact occurred rather than if
the victim
was assaulted.
I agree.
I would also supplement to that understanding these limitations.
Much of it also comes with the what's published in the literature and
understanding that framework
of activity level, how much DNA can we expect in a sample based upon that level
of activity?
Yes.
Ultimately, it depends on the amount of DNA that is recovered.
And that is probably the best parameter to deal with.
What I should add is if you feel unable to do a calculation, then the onus is
on the
scientist to state the limitations.
You would just have to say that I cannot do an assessment activity level.
I think it could be very dangerous to not say that because the problem is that
the jury
may take the one in a million to think that it's got something to do with the
probability
of direct transfer.
That's where the danger is.
And actually, I've seen this in many reports and I'm convinced that this is of
serious
concern and put well lead to miscarriages of justice if this happens.
Chris, the next question is for you.
In Singapore, the bulk of your cases, approximately 60 to 70 percent are touch
DNA related.
At least 50 percent of those are complex DNA mixtures.
How does your lab handle such high volume of cases and what are your thoughts
on the direction
for mixture interpretation given the advancement of technology, e.g. higher
sensitivity of STR
kits?
That's an interesting question.
I think it brings out a couple of different issues.
The lab itself is indeed handling something like over 80 percent touch DNA
samples.
And indeed, as Adrian said, this strange unknown thing that we are dealing with
, success rates
aren't great.
We are hitting about 35, 40 percent, getting usable profiles from those touch
DNA.
So maybe a little bit of background.
Why do we have so much of touch DNA samples?
Singapore is located in the golden triangle region.
Lots of drug trafficking consumption possession happening around.
UNODC has also highlighted that it's the region where you get the fast
emergence of new
psychoactive substances, so our government takes a very strong stance on drug
trafficking cases.
So as you can imagine, in drug cases, you have both the courier, the packer,
the buyers,
so it's definitely a complex mixture.
The other bulk of our work are volume crime.
So with volume crime, again, you have house-breaking cases, lots of people
touching with an additional
complication, which is that of related DNA coming from the other members in the
same household.
So how do you deal with it?
Well, with volumes, I think the solution is basically automation.
You can't do very much more without automation.
How do we go further from that?
I think what we need to do is, if there is the volume, is how do we automate
moving from
the quick handling systems to another?
Now we use multiple Maxwell's 16s because I personally am a firm believer in
redundancy.
So I don't want to have a single giant robot.
I like to have multiple units where I have the flexibility of changing volumes,
interjecting
urgent essence when needed.
Now going from that on to large volume as well, some people do use cutoffs,
quant cutoffs
where you don't go on to AMP.
It makes sense, but we took a look at that as well, and we did realize there
will be
those samples where they are quant zero and you will still get a DNA profile.
So a very conscious decision has to be made.
You will have this balance where you are going to have some, or lack of a
better term, I
call it false negatives, and versus the kind of time and effort savings that
you will get
that you can now channel to some other cases.
So that's something to keep in mind if you're going to have a quant cut off.
Now the second part of it dealing with prop gen.
I think with these mixtures, prop gen is indeed the direction to go to it.
It's going to simplify.
It will be giving you greater value of your data, better deconvolution of your
multiple
contributors, you know, who are the genotypes at each of the locus belonging to
the different
contributors.
But I'll throw in also a little caveat.
It is not the solution to everything.
And let me use the drug cases in our country as an example.
We have yet to encounter any challenge with respect to the person or the
identify who
has been identified.
So there's been no challenge with respect to that.
The issues in court is exactly what Peter has been talking about.
What the court is interested in is how did the DNA get there?
So in terms of how do we address what the court really wants is going to be
evaluated
reporting, activity driven, how did it get there?
Because the activity to the courts is what is going to advise the courts in
terms of guilt,
in a sense, even level of culpability.
So I think that's where a lot more what needs to be done.
We're going to pivot a little bit here and go over to haploid markers,
alternate markers
and new technologies.
And this is for Marta, Chris, Adrian, and Aaron.
Marta, you've worked with MITO, Y markers, SNP markers, and both research
projects and
some casework projects.
Can you describe how you make decisions on the use of various markers with or
without
combining CE-STRs?
So I think that everyone who knows me also knows that I'm a big admirer of hapl
oid markers
and I try to use them as much as possible in both casework and research.
But what I think is that casework and research are very different and
introducing extra markers
can have a different impact on these cases.
So in state of Bavaria in Germany where I work, we had the legislation for two
years,
which allowed us to perform ancestry and phenotype prediction on crime examples
So those new markers usually come into light when we just get stuck with STR
profiling.
So we bring new technologies and new markers because what we were used to, it's
not enough.
So we gathered some experience during those two years of performing forensic
DNA phenotyping
and this included both SNP sequencing and my 200-algeneum sequencing.
And what we learned and what we observed is how exciting it can be for the
investigation,
so how much light it can bring into the investigation.
And we had cases where it was really helpful, but what we also observed is that
there is
a big room for over-interpretation.
And this is, I absolutely agree with Peter about the education of the law
enforcement.
So new markers are also new for lots of us here and especially new for lawyers
and for
police.
And I think that what we are not really used to as forensic scientists is
introducing
our interpretation of results because we try to be absolutely objective and not
biased
and not go into the direction of explaining too much.
However, with these new markers, if you do not explain them, then the law
enforcement
explains them themselves.
And this can of course end up not the way we would like it to finish.
So I think that there is a big room still for this to improve.
However, we are scientists, so this is what we do and we move forward.
So I hope that this would be just a common ground for all of us.
On the other hand, on those historical cases, there is only a pure excitement
there when
you introduce new markers.
And if they shed light on something that other methods are not able to shed
light, so I'm
used to working with old samples from Second World War and in this case,
getting any more
information that anthropology or archaeology was not able to bring, it's
absolutely amazing.
Chris, in your lab in Singapore, using Wizen and what they are most valuable
for?
Okay, we use them for all sexual assaults and practically most of the outrage
of modesty
cases.
We full-fledged use, this was in mid-2018 and I think the gain is that we have
seen a doubling
in the detection of all the male YCR profiles.
So right now we use the quant as well as the autosomal profile as a gauge.
Do we go on to YCR testing?
And I think the value is in the sense that we now tell law enforcement, I do
have a male
YCR profile.
Prior to this when there was only a female autosomal left, the typical claim
from the perpetrator
will be I have no knowledge and have involved no role.
Now that here that is a male profile obtained, it immediately changes to it's
an issue of
consent.
So it does have some value there.
Adrian, let's go back to your touch DNA work.
You've looked at IEDs with both NGS and RapidDNA comparing back to CESTRs.
What technology might you recommend for different types of samples?
Well we did have on loan, we tried one of the rapid machine from your
technology and
my research group played around with that using ties, cable ties, all sorts of
matches,
fuses and things like that and just tried holding them and dealing with them
and sticking
them straight into the carousel.
And I would say some substrates work really well.
Even if you can get really good profiles from things you touch for a few
seconds and some
strubs substrates didn't work well.
And I think that's because when you do touch something, your cells stick there.
Now why do they stick there?
That's the big question.
Why do they stick there?
It's based upon the outer layer of your cell binding to the substrate.
And some substrates bind too well and they don't come off.
Now why does it work in our hands when we do just direct PCR using Verifier
Plus?
95 degrees for 15 minutes.
Now if you could modify the rapid machine to do that type of thing and also the
buffer
used in rapid is currently I think the global filer buffer.
If the company were instead to put in the verifier buffer, it would work so
much better.
Right?
Because we're dealing with tiny traces of material and that's the nature of
this work.
So you need to maximize the chance of releasing that tiny trace material into
the solution
to then be put through the rapid and then it would work.
But at the moment it's very much substrate dependent.
What types of substrates are you seeing?
Can you give some examples?
For instance, what did work very well in the hands of my research group, I just
sit
in my office and pontificate.
They're the ones that actually do the work, is like striking a match, striking
a match
and just putting that wood into the rapid actually works.
We get really good profiles.
But from certain types of wire, and I think it's because of the way that DNA
binds to
wire.
They did not work well.
So we need to play around with how to release the cells from certain substrates
like metals.
But other times like plastics, which is inert, they fall off.
So it's actually if you just think about why cells stay there, you can start to
answer
that question yourself.
And some substrates do work well and but by heat they will come off.
And that's why I think if you just heat things up, dead straight forward, cells
will come
off.
And that's why.
That's interesting.
And this also goes back to what you said before about direct amp.
Extract DNA from wood and you pull other materials out that inhibit downstream
where you may
not be seeing the same thing with direct amp.
That's exactly it.
And I think it's horses for courses.
Sometimes you definitely do need to put through an extraction process.
Some things you just do not.
There's no scientific reason why there might be a legal reason why in this
country.
But there's no scientific reason why for some substrates.
You just don't need to.
There's already free DNA.
It works.
Aaron, next question is for you.
How can outsourcing to a private service lab help provide more practical and
efficient
access to these alternate methods considering the heavy implementation lift for
most crime
laboratories?
Yeah, it's certainly a heavy lift to bring a new method online, as I'm sure
many of you
in this room are aware of.
So starting off, you have the cost consideration whether you require new
instrumentation or
just new chemistry.
But the validation itself is a lot of labor, a lot of time on average at least
a couple
months, sometimes much longer, depending on the complexity.
Many private labs and large public labs have staff that are dedicated to
validation, but
that's not a luxury that all labs have.
And in that case, you're pulling an analyst off of casework to complete a
validation.
So you have the additional consideration of the loss productivity there when
considering
the cost.
And once the method is validated, there's still quite a bit of work on the
implementation
and training phase.
And we find that oftentimes that's just as much work, if not more than the
validation
itself, making all of those operational decisions, developing your protocols,
reporting,
templates, software changes, worksheet updates, et cetera.
So that's quite a bit of work as well.
And then once you're online, staying online, the QC proficiency testing, ret
raining with
staff turnover, inevitably you'll have validation mods, version changes, just
keeping up with
the technology once you are online.
And for that reason, I think you really have to consider the return on
investment.
Is this alternate method going to be used often enough to make it worth it to
bring it
online, considering the case volume and the frequency of submission?
And aside from cost, there's also the consideration of knowledge and know-how.
So if you have an analyst using an alternate method infrequently, they're not
going to
be as knowledgeable or proficient at it as someone who is using that technology
on a
daily basis.
So that's where a private lab can come in and come into play so that they're
there when
your case requires this alternate method without all of those challenges of
going online and
staying online.
Okay.
We're going to move on to the next topic of discussion here.
That is responding effectively to mass disasters and documenting war crimes.
This is for Martha and Erin.
Martha, you've worked on several projects involving very challenging remains
for war
crime documentation.
What are the biggest challenges you have faced and how have you overcome those
challenges?
I think that with historical cases, we usually face two type of challenges and
there are
scientific and non-scientific ones.
So the scientific ones are actually about the DNA quality and quantity.
And on one hand, there is a huge development in the area.
Today we already heard exciting talks about it.
There are more to come and there are posters about it.
But of course, if DNA is very much degraded, we cannot return this process so
much.
So there are some limitations to it.
But I am extremely excited to see how forensics is overcoming this.
So when I entered forensics, and it was not so long time ago, but when I
entered the field,
even back then extracting DNA from bones did not sound like something obvious.
Right now I don't say that that is obvious, but we definitely moved.
We progressed in this and it's absolutely outstanding what type of results we
are able
to get from the graduated bones.
So I know that we will still overcome some challenges.
However, those non-scientific challenges, these are sometimes more complicated.
And this for example, require in case of historical studies a close
collaboration with
not forensic scientists.
And I think that this is not so popular that forensic scientists jump into
historical
studies.
So it means that we have to engage with collaborations with archaeologists,
anthropologists, and
historians.
And these are not typically collaborators or partners that we are used to
because we
work with law enforcement.
So I think that we should just transfer transition and start treating them as
our partner and
show that if we talk together, we can achieve great results together and also
to explain
to public and to those partners, this is exactly what Peter was mentioning
today about War
Train Center.
Until the last victim is identified, we should never stop the identification
process.
And this also should be exactly the same motivation should be used for all of
the war
victims.
So until the last victim is identified, we should keep identifying them, no
matter how
much time has passed.
Absolutely.
Right now there's a conflict in Ukraine.
Or so how might some of the lessons you've learned over time help right now
with what's
going on in Ukraine, the preservation of samples and some of the challenges
that they face
ahead?
I think that's one important thing too, because I don't want to talk about the
awfulness of
war and the fact that this is even happening.
But one lesson that we learned when working with the victims from the Second
World War
is time.
So time is the biggest enemy in our case, because when 70 years passed, it's
not only about
the quality and the quantity of DNA, but it's also about the relatives who
passed, who missed
the opportunity to hear about the loved ones being identified.
But of course back then we didn't have methods to implement, to identify these
victims.
Now we have those methods and this is why we try to do and what we should do.
But when a war is happening right now, the response should be imminated.
I know it's not easy to collect reference material in this case with there is
ongoing
conflict, military conflict, and we have refugees that relocated.
However, this should not wait.
The identification of the victims should absolutely follow and we should learn
that right now
we have those methods and they should be used.
The knowledge that is on this stage right now with what you've done and what's
at this
conference, this is information that needs to be translated and passed on
because it's
going to matter in the future.
There's going to be a humanitarian crisis that needs to be solved and forensics
will
play a key role in that.
Aaron this next question is for you.
Bodhi has worked on remains from so many challenging disasters over the years,
perhaps
most notably 9/11 attacks in 2001 and you've seen the technology and methods
evolve a
great deal.
How will technology advancements have the greatest operational utility from
your perspective?
Yeah, there's certainly been a lot of incremental advances in technology since
that time, thinking
about what has the most operational utility.
I think one important advancement was the improvement in extraction technology.
Being able to improve our recovery specifically of degraded DNA and overcome
inhibitors.
We have more methods available now designed specifically for the testing of
bones.
We know they pose their own unique challenges.
I think that's a really big one.
Another one that may not immediately come to mind for some is the addition of
the degradation
index in the quant.
Certainly helps our targeting in PCR.
The new STR kits with expanded markers definitely have improved sensitivity,
which helps a great
deal.
But also with the expanded markers, it helps quite a bit with the kinship
analysis.
We now need fewer family references, especially in situations where you're
dealing with partial
profiles.
We need fewer family references now, which helps in those mass fatality
incidents.
Another advancement that came out of our 911 testing was the use of mini STRs.
We had developed Bode Mini's at the time and then started utilizing mini filer
when that
was available.
I think when the new megaplex kits came online, I think a lot of people had
this perception
that mini STRs wouldn't really have a role anymore.
But I would say that we still use them routinely on our victim identification
cases and challenging
samples.
So that's certainly still a valuable one for us.
Of course, automation as well in a mass fatality incident one time is of the
essence.
If we had had the same automation available then, I think that would have
helped quite
a bit.
And of course, rapid DNA as we're talking about.
And we're here at this meeting learning about all of these fascinating
technologies that
have a place in this testing.
But I would say still, we are using lineage markers, YSTRs, Mito.
But as far as operational utility, I would say that the bread and butter for us
is still
the STRs and mini STRs on our victim identification cases.
This is for Tim and Peter.
Tim, there's been a proliferation in the types and uses of DNA databases in
recent years.
Can you speak to the major trends, maybe both nationally since we are here in
the US,
but also globally?
And what is making the most impact?
The proliferation of database is certainly an important topic.
Everything that you guys are talking about to get results needs to go into a
database
so you can get hits.
And if you look around, there's a lot of different trends that are happening
right now.
One is just the developing world wants in.
I mean, Peter Waterman said there are 59 countries that have databases.
But that's many more that haven't.
They want to now do it.
So if you're looking around the world, you're seeing a lot of activity like
Central America,
Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras even introduced legislation just a few
weeks ago.
El Salvador introduced probably the strongest DNA database nearly in the world
as far as
the law goes.
They want to do this.
You're seeing this in Kazakhstan.
Even Ukraine during the war, they passed DNA database legislation.
So you're seeing these countries want to move forward.
The second major trend you see within that trend of databases is they're
starting with
the restees rather than starting with convicted because they're understanding
the hit rates
that come along with these larger databases.
The second trend I think we're seeing is humanitarian databases.
The Western world, the developed world have done humanitarian databases,
missing persons
databases.
But we really don't take that on as a serious concern of the government.
The government doesn't advertise these databases to people that have loved ones
who go missing
as much as they should.
We don't test as many all the human remains that we find in the US, for example
But some of these countries are taking this on very aggressively.
For example, in Guatemala, you'll see in the next six months the government is
going to
come up with a public service campaign where when people go missing, they're
encouraging
their public to report their -- go to the authorities and submit their DNA.
You're going to see this on billboards and on TV commercials.
These are the types of humanitarian proactive programs that we're starting to
see.
The third trend I'll mention is perhaps with what I call plan B.
So we have these big databases with 150 million people around the world.
But what happens when you don't get a hit?
What do you do next?
You give up.
And as we're seeing these plan B approaches come up, most notably, quickly in
the US with
genetic genealogy.
But I think there's other plan Bs that governments trying to come up with
globally within the
government-regulated databases so you can get your results with these
government databases,
such as more countries are looking at how to do effective familial searching.
We're seeing countries come up with -- some countries are now taking YSTRs and
using them
in a very regulated careful way to where if you don't get a hit in the STRs,
you're seeing
about getting a match in the YSTRs.
So these plan B approaches, we're seeing more of them because Y settle on a 40%
hit rate
when you can get closer to 100.
I think lastly I'll mention is just the trends I'm seeing with rapid DNA.
You're seeing this globally and police wanting to go faster.
And when they can't get it through the standard protocols, what are the other
options?
We're seeing rapid expand and cleverness.
Like in the United States, we're seeing a few states now set up databases where
if they
can't get until the FBI allows end to searching for rapid, how could we do
investigative leads
for rapid at the state level by taking two swabs, one for the investigative
lead with
the rapid and then one off to the lab to go up to end this.
So just more innovation in the rapid space.
So those are some of the four things having impact with the proliferation of
databases.
What impact do you see concerns about privacy having on these databases,
whether it's profiling
or --
Sure.
I think there's -- privacy is a big thing and you have to balance the benefits
of these
databases against the privacy -- potential privacy violations.
And I think that there's various things that people are doing or countries are
doing to
deal with this.
I think one of the realities -- I know my friends in the FBI in the room don't
like to
hear this because we don't do it here, but in many countries I think of the 59
countries
20 now require the destruction of the biological sample because in those
governments' mind,
including the UK, which is actually a response to the Marburg case, is if the
government
gets rid of that biological sample, privacy issues are diminished.
And there's issues that come with that, but that's one area that we're seeing
quite a
big trend around the world is that destruction of the biological sample.
And I think we're seeing governments also trying to limit the amount of data
you're using.
So if you're using a big sets of data, only database what you actually need to
get to
results.
So those are the kind of things that we're seeing.
Thank you.
If you please help me give a warm round of applause to our panelists that are
up here.
Thank you, Christian and panelists, for those interesting and informative
presentations.
We do have time for our live Q&A now, so if you have a question for the panel
ists, please
submit it through the Q&A panel on your screen.
And while we wait for everyone to submit their questions, I have just a few
polling questions
for you guys.
Our first polling question is, does your lab perform the following techniques?
Body fluid ID, YSTR analysis, mitochondrial DNA analysis, touch DNA analysis, N
GS, next
generation sequencing, or genetic genealogy?
You can check all that apply.
All right, let's see what everyone says.
It looks like the largest percentage is YSTR analysis followed by touch DNA.
That's interesting.
After that, it looks like mitochondrial DNA analysis.
All right, our second question is, does your lab use automation?
Yes, for DNA purification?
Yes, for quantification setup?
Yes, for STR amplification setup?
Yes, for CE plate setup?
Yes, for all of the above?
Or no, we do not use automation.
You can check all that apply again.
All right, let's see what everyone says.
Looks like yes, most, or not quite half, but almost there, for DNA purification
followed
by, let's see.
I think, we got a tie for STR amplification setup and for all of the above.
So there's a lot of automation going on.
All right, last question coming up.
Would you like to receive more information?
Yes, about YSTR analysis or automation solutions or rapid DNA analysis or
mitochondrial analysis
or other NGS applications?
Go ahead and let us know and then we will go ahead and get on to the QA.
All right, so panelists, thank you for your presentation.
Now the audience has some questions, so we're going to jump right into it.
So Peter, are you there?
Our first question is for you.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Lab and Clear Peter.
All right, so thank you for joining us today.
Our first question is, what can the criminal justice community do differently
to think
about reporting out of activity level, given that labs need to be impartial to
prosecution
and defense propositions?
Well, obviously impartiality is extremely important and the nice thing about
the framework which
I described is that it does promote impartiality because the propositions which
the scientists
have to deal with are provided by the prosecution and the defense themselves.
So we are neutral in the fact that we do not decide how likely a proposition is
We must always work with the probability of the evidence if a proposition is
true.
What we need to do in order to facilitate reporting the activity level however
is really
dependent upon the training, accreditation as with any other branch or forensic
science.
And I realize that there may not be very much a training opportunity at the
moment and this
is what really needs to change to facilitate the methodology I spoke about.
Okay, perfect, thank you.
All right, Adrienne, where you are up now, you with us?
I am indeed.
Awesome, perfect.
So we have about 25% of our audience interested or using touch DNA when we just
pulled them
a moment ago.
So can you comment more on the swabs that you use for your touch DNA work?
Yes, indeed.
We great fans of using the small little micro swabs which are nylon in nature.
Simply DNA is negatively charged if you just think about it in bind very
effectively to
anything that is nylon.
Now what matters is the orientation of how that works, how it sweeps across any
substrate
and then collects the DNA.
Now linked to that, we have developed methodologies where you actually can see
real time DNA being
collected or cells being collected.
So you can monitor how effective your swabbing techniques are and just check
that they do
work.
Yes, we've checked loads of different swabs, different tape lifting as well.
So we've come down to the fact that we find very effectively is certain nylon
swabs.
They do work for us on tiny touch DNA samples very, very effectively.
Okay, awesome, thank you.
And to follow up on that, do you recommend a visualization technique that shows
you better
where to swab?
Well, of course, I mean, I used to be a crime scene examiner.
I used to go to crime scenes trying to find stuff and you can't.
So we have been pioneering this method.
It's very simple.
You can put on a simple die that detects DNA and you can see it very quickly
and therefore
you can monitor where that cells are.
You can monitor collection and retrieval.
How easy is that?
So there are ways about doing it because otherwise you're doing everything
blind and
although so many other processes are so effective of generating STR profiles
and deconvoluting
the sort of thing that Peter does a lot of, if you don't get DNA data in the
first place,
nothing else works.
So that so much is reliant upon the front end, getting really good samples,
collected, good
swabs, say nylon, we love them.
And if you just do a simple test that we do, you can see that DNA, we use a
certain thing
called diamond dye, cells appear, you can see them, you can see they're
collected, you
can see they must be on the swab.
Well, it's a great way of monitoring it's all going to work.
Absolutely, that makes sense.
Okay, thank you so much for that wonderful information on swabbing.
Marta, we have a question for you now.
You with us?
Yes, hey everyone.
Hello.
All right, so what have you done to help educate your law enforcement partners
on how
to use some of these new marker types?
So in Germany, law is pretty strict with constrophysics.
So I would just clarify for some of the attendees that do not know this because
I think that
we have a lot of US based people in the audience.
So in Germany, we are only allowed from the new markers to use the phenotype
predictions
as an eye, hair and skin color.
And so the mitochondrial DNA, we are still only able to analyze the control
regions,
not the whole mitochondrial genome.
And this of course ties our heads of it as it comes to providing more need for
the police.
So what we try to do is we try to organize workshops in which we present them
the potential
results which would cover more markers and how then officially it would be to
also include
ancestry prediction, for example, analyzed together and interpreted together
with the
phenotype prediction and how limited it is to only analyze control regions of
the mitochondrial
DNA and not the whole genome.
So when we do analyze the control region, we mostly only do it for the
frequency purpose
and not for the phylogenetic analysis.
So we are losing a bit of the information that is there.
So with the workshops, we show them examples from our own research, show them
how the data
can be interpreted, what can be hard to interpret what the limitations are and
how we can basically
omit these limitations by just including more of the analysis.
>> Perfect.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'm in Europe now, you ready for us?
>> I am.
Hi everyone.
>> Perfect.
Thank you.
All right.
So tell us what types of new techniques do you find you get more requests for
as a service
lab?
>> Yeah.
Recently I would say we're seeing a big increase in requests for DNA testing on
spent shell
casing.
And I think that's for a couple of reasons.
Gun crimes are on the rise in the United States and so we're seeing more focus
in this area.
But also, I think a lot of the demand is driven by the increased success that
people
are seeing with new methods out there last year.
We launched a new service for testing of shell casing and we used the ATF for
instance
law method followed by an internally developed extraction.
And we're previously prior to using this method.
Success rates were so low that I think testing of this sample type was often
done as a last
resort.
Now we're seeing 75% of cases generate a codicellable profile.
So that's really a game changer.
And I think that's driving a lot of the demand to do this testing more
routinely as part of
the investigation.
I think the other one I would say is with forensic investigative genealogy,
genetic genealogy.
For so many years we focused on backlog reduction and while those efforts are
still ongoing,
now we're seeing a lot of agencies focus on revisiting some of those most
violent crimes,
serial offenders, unidentified remains that have been encoded for many years
without a
match and were previously about being a dead end.
Now they have this other option that's showing remarkable success.
So I would say those two things are what we're seeing an increase in our store.
Got it.
Thank you.
Yeah, it feels every day you feel like you see a headline that says someone was
arrested
for cold crime in the 1980s, 1990s.
So that definitely makes sense.
Okay.
Thank you.
Tim, you're up now.
Are you ready?
I am.
Perfect.
Okay.
So what do you think will drive more countries to start including arrestees
into their laws
or even utilizing different markers like YSTRs?
Yeah, I'll focus on the arrestees.
I think it's if you look around the world in the last 24 months of the
countries that
have introduced or passed DNA database legislation, they're wanting to go
straight to arrestees
because they've kind of been listening and watching and it's kind of been
convinced
that it is just like a fingerprint.
We've, you know, for nearly 100 years, we've taken fingerprints from arrestees
and kept
them in databases.
But the reality is that these, there's concerns in some countries about arrest
ees and databases.
And we talked about, during the presentation, I talked about the strategy of
destroying
the biological sample that even makes it more like a fingerprint so there's no
temptation
by the government to ever use it for anything else.
But even that doesn't seem to work in some places.
And I think even in the United States, we basically, you know, 10 years ago,
all the
arrestees laws passed and half the states, and it kind of stopped.
And I think the politics of things have kind of gotten in the way.
And I think the next strategy to get places to pass the arrestees is to maybe
go a step
further than sample destruction.
Maybe we go what the UK did.
And the UK, in fact, under their legislation based on the Marper case, not only
do they
destroy the biological sample, the reference samples, but they only allow you
to search
one time.
You get a arrestee, you search it against the unsolved database one time, and
then you
park that arrestee sample.
It's not in the database.
And if they're not ultimately convicted, it goes away.
But it's basically a keyboard search one time.
And maybe that's the next step that places that countries need to go to if they
can't
get through the arrestee testing legislation because we know a test, a restee
testing legislation
works.
It nearly doubles your hit rate in some cases.
So, so there's just got to be more strategies to go to try to figure it out
because it is
an effective strategy to have a restee testing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yes, it's an interesting alternative.
Here, back to you with a couple questions about activity level.
So for a laboratory interested in implementing activity level proposition
assessment, what
would a training program and competency program look like?
Well, obviously the training program would have to cover the theory, which
includes the
likelihood ratio theory, the hierarchy of propositions theory, and ideally a
method
to calculate likelihood ratios at activity level, which typically use simple
Bayesian
networks.
This kind of training is supplied by colleagues at Loser University in
Switzerland and the
Netherlands Forensic Institute, the NFI, run an accreditation system, which is
actually
open to all scientists.
So actually the mechanisms are out there to be used for those who want to be
trained,
et cetera.
The Loser training can be done remotely by internet.
So don't actually physically have to go over there.
It's very comprehensive and takes place over a number of months.
Okay.
Well, that's helpful.
Has activity level reporting been accepted in courts outside of the United
States?
Well, actually, I would argue that we're all doing activity level reporting.
Activity level reporting is whenever a court asks you about the how, why, or
when a DNA
profile became evidential.
And I'm quite sure that every reporting officer has been asked that kind of
question.
And if you're responding to that kind of question, then you are reporting at
activity
level.
So the answer is yes, this reporting does seem to be accepted.
But the main question is, is it being done correctly?
If you're, if the question, I suspect the question is asking whether activity
level is
being reported and giving a likelihood ratio for the activity.
This kind of reporting has certainly been accepted outside U.S. courts.
Not sure if it's been done in U.S. courts.
But certainly this kind of reporting has been carried out in jurisdictions such
as Switzerland,
Netherlands, and the U.K.
Okay.
Thank you.
We got our last two questions here before we wrap up.
Tim, we got one for you.
Would there ever be a possibility of linking all appropriate national DNA
databases to
create a global DNA database for searching?
Well, you know, we have the Interpol option.
And a lot of places do submit their fender samples to Interpol.
And so that is an option to send your samples to.
Other countries are, you know, in the European Union, they do the PROOM network
and they're
sharing automatically every day amongst the European Union countries.
But I think it's going to be by region.
I don't think that there'll be a global network where you automatically send it
around to
every country every day.
So I think you'll see things like in the European Union, there's talks in
Central America, South
America, Asia, to do something similar.
But there's always the opportunity to do one by one, of course, where if you
have a case
in the United States, you can do an agreement with France to share that one
case and get
agreements between the countries to share.
So yeah, I think regional is probably the most logical place to go.
I doubt we'll see a global network in our time.
Okay.
Thanks, Tim.
Adrian got another one for you before we wrap up.
Does the DNA -- okay, perfect.
Does the DNA dye impact the ability to collect friction ridges or latent prints
at all?
No, no, we've tested this.
And actually you can use any method for friction-rich finger marking
enhancement first, and then
you can apply our dye.
It works perfectly well, either way.
So we wouldn't use this methodology if it impacted on such an important aspect
of finger
marking enhancement.
So no, it can go hand in hand.
That's awesome.
Thank you so much.
Audience, that about wraps up the time we have for Q&A today.
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