Development of a Proteomic Assay for Menstrual Blood, Vaginal Fluid and Species Identification

Researchers propose four aims, the first three are directly related to body fluid identification, the last relates to changes that can occur to samples as a result of crime scene investigations. The major goals of this project are to i) establish body fluid fingerprint assays for menstrual blood and vaginal fluid, ii) identify those protein of greatest value for species identification and make them a routine part of mass spectroscopy body fluid assays, and iii) determine assay conditions for gender identification from blood. Finally, researchers propose to iv) evaluate the effects of the standard crime scene reagent (Bluestar) on body fluid detection by mass spectroscopy. The successful completion of this work will not only strengthen the quality of body fluid analyses, but expand testing to include species and gender, likely making mass spectroscopy the standard for body fluid testing against which other methods will be measured.

ca/ncf