About Forensic DNA
DNA collection and analysis gives the criminal justice field a powerful tool for convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent. About Forensic DNA provides general information on a wide range of topics.
Basics of DNA Typing
Only one-tenth of a single percent of DNA (about 3 million bases) differs from one person to the next. Scientists can use these variable regions to generate a DNA profile of an individual, using samples from blood, bone, hair, and other body tissues and products.
In criminal cases, this generally involves obtaining samples from crime-scene evidence and a suspect, extracting the DNA, and analyzing it for the presence of a set of specific DNA regions (markers).
If the sample profiles don't match, the person did not contribute the DNA at the crime scene.
If the patterns match, the suspect may have contributed the evidence sample.
DNA from crime scenes also can be compared to profiles stored in a database. See Forensic DNA Databases for more details.
DNA is a powerful tool. DNA analysis is a powerful tool because each person's DNA is unique (with the exception of identical twins). Therefore, DNA evidence collected from a crime scene can implicate or eliminate a suspect, similar to the use of fingerprints. It also can analyze unidentified remains through comparisons with DNA from relatives. Additionally, when evidence from one crime scene is compared with evidence from another using CODIS, those crime scenes can be linked to the same perpetrator locally, statewide, and nationally.
DNA is also a powerful tool because when biological evidence from crime scenes is collected and stored properly, forensically valuable DNA can be found on evidence that may be decades old. Therefore, old cases that were previously thought unsolvable may contain valuable DNA evidence capable of identifying the perpetrator.
Some of the content on the page has been provided by the Human Genome Project Information Web Site, funded by the Human Genome Program of the U.S. Department of Energy.
