Software Developed by the NIST Forensics/Human Identity Project Team
Team Members: John M. Butler (Project Leader), Margaret C. Kline, Peter M. Vallone, Janette W. Redman, Amy E. Decker, Carolyn R. "Becky" Hill, David L. Duewer (Analytical Chemistry Division)
$Funding from the National Institute of Justice through the NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards
Disclaimer: The following software programs were developed for use in a research environment and are not guaranteed to work on all possible computer configurations. Email links are provided to the program developers if any questions arise.
AutoDimer (Pete Vallone)
Description: The AutoDimer software was developed to rapidly screen previously selected PCR primers for primer-dimer and hairpin interactions in short DNA oligomers (< 30 nucleotides). AutoDimer was originally created to assist in the development of multiplex PCR assays for probing STR and SNP markers for forensic purposes.
Links for Download: [Software Program - Visual Basic program] [Web-based Interface]
Reference: Vallone, P.M. and Butler, J.M. (2004) AutoDimer: a screening tool for primer-dimer and hairpin structures. Biotechniques, 37(2): 226-231.
Multiplex_QA
(Dave
Duewer)
Description: The Multiplex_QA system works in conjunction with the NIH-developed BatchExtract system to visualize short- and long-term changes in ABI 310 and 3100 electropherogram quality. BatchExtract converts ABI binary .fsa files into readily usable text data; Multiplex_QA uses these files to estimate and display quality metrics that capture changes in electropherographic resolution and efficiency. These metrics are mostly based on the behavior of the internal sizing ladder included with every sample. Several different graphical displays enable identifying unusual events over time scales ranging from a single .fsa file to all .fsa files from a given instrument.
Links for Download: (Warning: Large Files! Email for CD if you do not have a fast internet connection.) [Software Program (~300 kb WinZip file)] [User's Manual (~3 Mb pdf file)] [Example Dataset (~30 Mb WinZip files)]
Reference: Poster presented at NIJ DNA Grantees meeting June 28, 2005; Duewer, D.L. and Butler, J.M. (2006) Multiplex_QA: an exploratory quality assessment tool for multiplexed electrophoretic assays. Electrophoresis 27: 3735-3746.
mixSTR (Dave Duewer)
Description: The mixSTR system is an Excel-based tool, developed in collaboration with the Palm Beach County Sheriff�s Office, to help identify reference profiles in sets of mixed-source samples. Given allele lists for one or more evidentiary samples and all relevant suspect and control reference profiles, the mixSTR system provides detailed lists of the match and mismatch alleles among all samples and STR profiles. Sorted summaries of the percent of included alleles and loci for all comparisons are also provided. This tool is intended for use by forensic scientists working with mixed-source samples particularly cases involving a number of suspects.
Links for Download: [Software Program and example data files (~120kb WinZip files)]
Reference: Poster presented at NIJ DNA Grantees meeting June 28, 2005
Virtual MixtureMaker (Dave Duewer)
Description: Virtual MixtureMaker is an Excel-based tool developed to aid in sample selection for the recent NIST Mixture Interpretation Study (MIX05). This program performs a pairwise comparison of STR profiles in a dataset and reports the number of loci possessing 0,1,2,3,4,5, or 6 alleles in all possible two-person mixtures.
Links for Download: final version of program has not yet been made available for download [Software Program]
Reference: Poster presented at NIJ DNA Grantees meeting June 28, 2005
STR_ConvertFormats (Dave Duewer)
Description: DNA_ConvertFormats (formerly known as DNA_FSSi3_Convert) is an Excel-based tool developed to transform STR typing data from tables where every row contains information from a single locus (e.g., GeneMapperID output format) to a format where every row contains all typing results for a single sample (e.g., Genotyper table format).
Links for Download: [Software Program]
(must
enable Excel macros)
Reference: See description in Becky Hill presentation at the Expert Systems Workshop held in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Present and Future Technological Advances in Human Identification Conference (Roanoke, VA), March 27, 2006, "NIST Experience with FSS-i3 software" [.pdf]
STR_MatchSamples (Dave Duewer)
Description: STR_MatchSamples is an Excel-based tool developed to aid comparison of STR genotypes from two or more data sets. The "Exact Match" function creates a list of all samples that are fully concordant at all loci between the samples being compared. The "Best Match" function compares each sample to all others to look for other samples in the data set with similar genotypes.
Links for Download: [Software
Program]
(must
enable Excel macros)
Reference: See description in Becky Hill presentation at the Expert Systems Workshop held in conjunction with the 2nd Annual Present and Future Technological Advances in Human Identification Conference (Roanoke, VA), March 27, 2006, "NIST Experience with FSS-i3 software" [.pdf]