This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!       New Approach to Skeletal Age-Estimation can Help Identify Juvenile Remains (Forensic – […]

Recreating Faces of Egyptian Mummies Using Ancient DNA

In this interview, Ellen Greytak (Director of Bioinformatics at Parabon Nanolabs) discusses how DNA advances have changed the field of anthropology and what we know about ancient humans.   She also describes her poster presented at the 32nd International Symposium on Human Identification in which she shared the predicted faces of three ancient mummies from […]

Evaluation of the ForenSeq MainstAY Kit with Challenging Samples

My previous work involved the development of a kit using alternative markers, specifically Insertion Deletions (INDELs). The goal was to design a kit using ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to help differentiate samples based on ancestral genetic information.  In addition, this INDEL kit was designed with amplicons less than 200 bp to maximize recovery with challenging […]

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!       Can Ancient DNA Methods Be Used to Improve Success Rate of […]

The Wrongful Conviction of Lydell Grant for Murder in Texas: A Cautionary Tale of Faulty Eyewitness Identification and the Perils of “Inconclusive” DNA Mixture Statements

Today’s blog is written by guest blogger, Angie Ambers, MA, MS, PhD (Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science) and Mike Ware, JD (Innocence Project of Texas). Reposted from The ISHI Report with permission.   Shortly before midnight on December 10, 2010 (a Friday night), patrons of Club Blur (a bar in the Montrose district […]

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!       Police: DNA Helps Solve 1977 Slaying of Oregon Teens (The Columbian […]

Extracting and Purifying DNA from Challenging Calcified and Adhesive-Based Samples in Parallel Using a Walkaway Robotic System

Calcified samples or those that include an adhesive substrate may require more robust processing compared to routine forensic sample types. When performed manually, DNA extraction and purification of these challenging samples can impede overall laboratory efficiency and invite risks of human error and variability. A novel combination of assay chemistry and robotic workstation aid robust, […]

This Week in Forensic Science

No one has hours to scour the papers to keep up with the latest news, so we’ve curated the top news stories in the field of Forensic Science for this week. Here’s what you need to know to get out the door!       ‘This is How I’m Going to Die,’ New York City ME […]