Genetics

Forensic Biology Research and Development at NIJ

Forensic Biology involves the collection, study, and analysis of biological material on evidence from crime scenes to provide unbiased, scientific reports for a criminal or civil court case to give a better understanding of the crime that occurred. Historically, one of the earliest forensic biologists was Sir Alec Jeffreys in 1985 using DNA fingerprinting or DNA typing to individually identify humans.[1] He targeted variable...

Genetic Markers for Massively Parallel Sequencing in Forensics

Date Published

December 2015

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Genetic Variation in Tunisia in the Context of Human Diversity Worldwide

Date Published

2016

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Selecting Microhaplotypes Optimized for Different Purposes

Date Published

2018

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

A Genome-Wide Association Study of Skin and Iris Pigmentation Among Individuals of South Asian Ancestry

Date Published

April 2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Functional Characterization of SCN10A Variants in Several Cases of Sudden Unexplained Death

Date Published

August 2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Functional Reclassification of Variants of Uncertain Significance in the HCN4 Gene Identified in Sudden Unexpected Death

Date Published

2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Forensic Human Identification With Targeted Microbiome Markers Using Nearest Neighbor Classification

Date Published

January 2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Genetic Testing in Sudden Unexpected Natural Death in the Young: New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner's Experience and Perspective

Date Published

2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Functional Characterization of ABCC9 Variants Identified in Sudden Unexpected Natural Death

Date Published

May 2019

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Improving Ancestry Distinctions Among Southwest Asian Populations

Date Published

July 2018

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Genetic Analysis of Southern Brazil Subjects Using the PowerSeq (TM) AUTO/Y System for Short Tandem Repeat Sequencing

Date Published

March 2018

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Targeted Sequencing of Clade-Specific Markers From Skin Microbiomes for Forensic Human Identification

Date Published

January 2018

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Forensic Human Identification Using Skin Microbiomes

Date Published

2017

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Proteomic Analysis of Hair Shafts From Monozygotic Twins: Expression Profiles and Genetically Variant Peptides.

Date Published

2017

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Redesigned Forensic Research/Reference on Genetics-knowledge base, FROG-kb

Date Published

March 2018

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical), Report (Study/Research), Report (Grant Sponsored), Program/Project Description

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

The Evaluation and Refinement of Nonmetric Sex and Ancestry Assessment Methods in Modern Japanese and Thai Individuals

Date Published

August 2016

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Decoding the Human Face: Progress and Challenges in Understanding the Genetics of Craniofacial Morphology

Date Published

August 2022

Publication Type

Research (Applied/Empirical)

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

Just Science Podcast: Just Identifying Individuals with Forensic Genetic Genealogy

Content Advisory

Some content in this podcast may be considered sensitive and may evoke emotional responses, or may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

Date Published

September 2022

Agencies

NIJ-Sponsored

What’s Possible with Rapid DNA Technology?

August 2022

Series

Justice Today Podcast

NIJ scientist Tracey Johnson joins science writer Sarah Michaud in this episode. They discuss Rapid DNA technology, and Tracey explains the complexities of this technology – its pitfalls and its possibilities.

Reading and Resources from NIJ: