Acknowledgments

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is grateful for the support of the many people who were involved in this project, from the creation and empanelment of the Kinship and Data Analysis Panel (KADAP) through the development of this report.

The idea of a panel of experts to advise New York City officials in the identification of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) originated with Inspector W. Mark Dale, Director of Forensic Services for the New York State Police Department. Realizing that the number of victims and the condition of their remains would require his laboratory to enter uncharted territory, Inspector Dale asked NIJ to create a "brain trust" of independent scientists to offer guidance in this monumental effort.

NIJ thanks the organizations that supported their designee's participation on the KADAP. The National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Human Genome Research Institute and the National Center for Biotechnology Informatics provided several KADAP members whose expertise became the bedrock of the Panel's deliberations. We especially thank Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. David Lipman for identifying potential KADAP members, and for their steadfast support throughout the victim identification process. We also thank Dr. Celia Hooper Kozlowski, from NIH's Office of the Director, for her guidance on NIH programs that became extraordinary resources throughout the identification effort.

NIJ also thanks the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), Brigham and Women's Hospital, Carleton University, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Indiana University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University Center for Inherited Disease Research, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, New York State Department of Health, the University of Central Florida, the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and Yale University School of Medicine for supporting the investment of time and energy by their Panel representatives. We appreciate, too, that colleagues of KADAP members in those institutions often took on the responsibility of additional work so that the KADAP members could provide guidance on the identification of WTC victims.

Early in the process, the Panel's understanding about collection procedures and specific "Ground Zero" issues was greatly aided by then-Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police Department, Maureen Casey, who attended KADAP meetings on behalf of Commissioner Howard Safir.

The New York State Police Forensic Services Division made the initial KADAP meetings a priority, despite many new responsibilities that the Division had for organizing victim reference samples.

Many people—from the private and public sectors—provided testimony to the Panel that resulted in the KADAP recommendations. Early demonstrations of matching software, developed for other mass fatality situations, were an important contribution. We thank, in particular, Ed Huffine, Fuad Suljetovic, and Adnan Rizvic, with the International Commission on Missing Persons in Bosnia; Jodi Irwin, with AFDIL; and Benoît Leclair, with Myriad Genetics, who received permission from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to share a special computer program that was used in the WTC identification effort.

The KADAP also received presentations on genetic systems that were considered for the WTC identification effort. New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) and the New York State Police (NYSP) received assistance from some of these companies through funding by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As the identification of victims progressed, the KADAP received peer-review assistance from many experts, including Joyce deJong (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams), Terri Melton (Mitotyping Technologies), Kevin Miller (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Walther Parson (Institute for Legal Medicine in Austria), Alan Scott (Johns Hopkins University's Institute of Genetic Medicine), George Sensabaugh, Jr. (University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health), Brion Smith and James Ross (AFDIL), and Matthew Thomas.

Finally, NIJ is grateful to the OCME and NYSP scientists and, most importantly, to the KADAP members themselves. From the beginning of this extraordinary effort, these individuals worked as a seamless unit, identifying, analyzing, and crafting never-before-attempted approaches to victim identification through DNA analysis. The Panel's rigorous, thoughtful, and creative work—including important recommendations on mini-STR testing, statistical approaches to composite or "virtual" DNA profiles, and the creation of quality assurance safeguards—will have a profound impact far into the future on the identification of human remains.

Kinship and Data Analysis Panel

The Kinship and Data Analysis Panel ("KADAP") made recommendations to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City during the identification of World Trade Center victims. It is those recommendations that form the foundation of this report. The members of the KADAP—with their professional affiliations during the time that the majority of the panel's work was performed—appear here.

Joan E. Bailey-Wilson, Ph.D.
Inherited Disease Research Branch
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institutes of Health
Baltimore, MD

Jack Ballantyne, Ph.D.
University of Central Florida
Department of Chemistry
Orlando, FL

Howard Baum, Ph.D.
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
New York, NY

Frederick R. Bieber, Ph.D.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA

Leslie G. Biesecker, M.D.
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institutes of Health,
Bethesda, MD

Charles Brenner, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
School of Public Health
Oakland, CA

Bruce Budowle, Ph.D.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Laboratory Division
Quantico, VA

P. Michael Conneally, Ph.D.
Indiana University School of Medicine
Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics
Indianapolis, IN

John Butler, Ph.D.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD

George R. Carmody, Ph.D.
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

W. Mark Dale, MBA
Northeast Regional Forensic Institute
University at Albany, State University of New York
Albany, NY

Barry Duceman, Ph.D.
New York State Police
Forensic Investigation Center
Albany, NY

Arthur J. Eisenberg, Ph.D.
DNA Identity Laboratory
Department of Pathology and Anatomy
University of North Texas Health Science Center
Fort Worth, TX

Kenneth K. Kidd, Ph.D.
Yale University School of Medicine
Department of Genetics
New Haven, CT

Lisa Forman, Ph.D.
National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C.

Benoît Leclair, Ph.D.
Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Inc.
Salt Lake City, UT

Steve Niezgoda, MBA
Technical Consultant, National Institute of Justice
Niezgoda Consulting
Bristow, VA

Elizabeth Pugh, Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins University
Center for Inherited Disease Research
Baltimore, MD

Robert Shaler, Ph.D.
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
New York, NY

Stephen Sherry, Ph.D.
National Center for Biotechnology Information
National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD

Amanda Sozer, Ph.D.
Technical Consultant, National Institute of Justice
DNA Technology Consulting Services, LLC
Fairfax Station, VA

Thomas J. Parsons, Ph.D.
Department of Defense DNA Registry
Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
Rockville, MD

Anne Walsh, Ph.D.
Biggs Laboratory
Wadsworth Center
New York State Department of Health
Albany, NY