Raman spectroscopy for analyzing body fluid traces, stain aging, differentiation between races, genders and species

This research project is in continuation of an ongoing award ultimately targeting the development of an easy-to-use, portable instrument for the rapid, non-destructive, and confirmatory identification of body fluids in biological stains recovered at a crime scene. The main goals of the proposed study are to build a library of Raman signatures, and develop/validate the methodology and software for the automatic analysis of Raman spectroscopic data for (i) determining the age of a biological stain under various environmental conditions, (ii) differentiating human and animal blood, and (iii) determining race and gender based on human body fluid traces including blood, menstrual blood, vaginal fluid, semen, saliva and sweat. ca/ncf