Validation of Highly-Specific Protein Markers for the Identification of Biological Stains

Using previous NIJ funding, the University of Denver successfully mapped and rigorously compared the proteomes of five individuals for six body fluids with clear forensic relevance (i.e., peripheral and menstrual blood, vaginal secretions, semen, urine and saliva). Based on these analyses, the project team has been steadily building a database of candidate protein biomarkers of the target stains. The objective of the current project is to validate the specificity of the most promising candidate biomarkers for their target body fluids and the consistency of their expression among multiple humans. The result of this research will be a validated set of candidate biomarkers to be used in the identification of forensically relevant biological fluids.

ca/ncf