The Determination of the Physical Characteristics of an Individual from Biological Stains

The ability to determine the physical characteristics of an individual depositing a particular biological stain at a crime scene could provide important probative information to law enforcement investigators. There are a number of potentially useful human physical biometric indicators that may be amenable to molecular genetic analysis at this time, including age, height and skin pigmentation. The proposed work seeks to investigate whether determination of an individual's age is feasible in dried physiological stains. It will identify a number of potential RNA 'molecular clocks' that could provide investigators with information as to whether a DNA donor is a newborn, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, adult, middle-aged individual or old-aged individual. ca/ncf