New DNA technique may reveal face of killer in unsolved double-murder There were no witnesses to the gruesome murder of a South Carolina mother and her 3-year-old daughter inside a busy apartment complex four years ago. But a new technology that can create an image of someone using DNA samples left at crime scenes might bring police closer to catching the killer. Reston, Va.-based Parabon nanolabs, with funding from the Department of Defense, has debuted a breakthrough type of analysis called DNA phenotyping which the company says can predict a person's physical appearance from the tiniest DNA samples, like a speck of blood or strand of hair. The DNA phenotyping service, commercially known as "Snapshot," could put a face on millions of unsolved cases, including international ones, and generate investigative leads when the trail has gone cold. ~Snip~ "Traditional forensic analysis treats DNA as a fingerprint, whereas Snapshot treats it as a blueprint -- a genetic description of a person from which physical appearance can be inferred," Greytak said. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/1...-on-unsolved-double-murder/?intcmp=latestnews Fascinating!! We will be hearing more and more about this technology. This is the future of forensic science and quite exciting to consider the possibilities with using DNA to build faces.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/14/new-dna-technique-could-put-face-on-unsolved-double-murder/ Reston, Va.-based Parabon Nanolabs, with funding from the Department of Defense, has debuted a breakthrough type of analysis called DNA phenotyping which the company says can predict a person's physical appearance from the tiniest DNA samples, like a speck of blood or strand of hair. The DNA phenotyping service, commercially known as "Snapshot," could put a face on millions of unsolved cases, including international ones, and generate investigative leads when the trail has gone cold. Parabon's new technology reads the parts of the human genome that code for the differences in physical appearance between people. Snapshot is able to predict such critical traits as skin color, hair color, eye color and face shape. It can also predict the individual's ancestry as well as highly-detailed traits, like freckles. Parabon's DNA phenotyping service, Snapshot, used DNA left at the crime scene to create this image of a person of interest in the murders of Alston and her daughter.
It will be interesting to see, if this killer is ever caught, how closely he will match those pictures.
