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Please see our “Did You Know?” section toward the end of this issue. Topic: GE Healthcare launches new DNA amplification technique to maximize PCR specificity We continue to see stories on ‘catching criminals through their relatives’ DNA’. The article included here contains more details regarding computer experiment success rates and ‘ifs and buts’ of using kinship analysis. Another story included, is that of the Army currently investigating allegations that a scientist falsified DNA test results in nearly 500 cases across the country. In Iowa, a new DNA database requiring felons and sex offenders to provide DNA samples to the state has identified suspects in 40 cases over the last year, when it first began. In Nashville six new state positions have been created to process DNA. In cases involving DNA evidence we continue to see an increase in prison inmates requesting DNA testing to prove their innocence. In addition, there are a number of new and ongoing cases included in this issue. Deborah Sykes was on her way to work at the Winston-Salem Sentinel newspaper in North Carolina on the morning of Aug. 10, 1984. She parked her car and began walking the few blocks to her Sentinel office. She never made it. The 25-year-old woman was raped, sodomized, and stabbed to death. About a month later, police arrested 19-year-old Darryl Hunt. Although he maintained his innocence, Hunt was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison. But in 1990, Hunt caught a break. By then, reliable tests were available that could compare DNA in semen found on Sykes with that of her attacker. Testing in 1990, and again in 1994, showed that Hunt could not possibly be the source of the semen. Both times, law enforcement officials ignored the evidence. Further investigation, however, found a close, but not perfect, match to the genes of another man whose DNA was in a database of criminals kept by the state. More police work led to the questioning of this man's brother, who had once attacked a woman not far from the place where Deborah Sykes was killed. Confronted with DNA evidence, the man, Willard Brown, confessed to Sykes' murder on Dec. 22, 2003. In February of the next year, Darryl Hunt finally walked free after spending half of his life in prison for a crime he didn't commit. This case is cited by Harvard University researchers to demonstrate the potential of using the DNA of relatives to catch guilty kin. "Close relatives have particularly similar DNA profiles due to shared ancestry," notes David Lazer, an associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government. "As the Sykes case illustrates, this could be exploited in criminal investigations." 99 percent successLazer, along with colleagues Frederick Bieber, a pathologist at Harvard Medical School, and Charles Brenner, a mathematician at the University of California, Berkeley, designed computer experiments to demonstrate their point. The team started with a DNA sample from a crime scene that failed to be an exact match to any profile in a large, up-to-date database. Their computer program compared this sample to the DNA profiles of 50,000 offenders in what they call "a typical-sized state database." Offenders with the closest matches would, in an actual forensic investigation, be singled out as possible relatives of the suspect. From this simulation, they concluded that a parent or child of the suspect would be identified as the first candidate more than half (62 percent) of the time. Looking at the top 100 candidates, they raised their success rate for finding the best candidate to 99 percent. Further analysis showed they could also identify brothers and sisters of the suspect whose DNA they had, albeit at a slightly lower success rate. Their report, published in the online version of the May 12 issue of the journal Science, included discussion of another case where DNA of a relative led to solving a brutal murder. Lynette White, a 16-year-old girl, was found with her throat slit and more than 50 stab wounds on Valentine's Day 1988, in Cardiff, Wales. The crime scene yielded plenty of blood, including a sample that contained a rare form of a gene, which also appeared in the DNA of a 14-year-old boy whose profile was on file at the United Kingdom National Database. Fourteen years after the actual crime, committed before highly accurate DNA profiles were available, police concluded that the murderer was a male relative of the boy. They asked several relatives, including an uncle named Jeffrey Gafoor, for a DNA sample. Gafoor, believing the police were trying to match a semen sample, agreed and told police that he had had sex with Lynette White around the time of the murder. It was, he thought, a clever way to account for his semen at the murder scene. But the evidence came from a blood sample and it matched his DNA profile perfectly. After a long and frustrating search for White's killer, which included the imprisonment of three innocent men, the mystery was solved in 2003. Ifs and butsNeedless to say, kinship DNA mapping is not going to solve every crime. Its success depends on the presence of the DNA of a close relative of the guilty person being in a database of criminal offenders. Addressing that probability, the researchers mention that a U.S. Department of Justice survey found that 46 percent of jail inmates said they had at least one close relative who had been incarcerated. Banking DNA from criminals and arrestees has been challenged as violating Constitutional protection again unreasonable search and seizure. As Lazer points out, "such challenges have not prevailed, as the courts have ruled that the interests of public safety outweigh individual privacy interests." However, the last legal word has not been spoken as attempts expand to cover those convicted of minor crimes and misdemeanors. The Harvard researchers recognize that identification of kin by searching DNA databases of criminals could lead to widespread opposition. However, it also might lead to louder calls for a universal DNA database, which to date have been rejected. Those in favor of such expanded databases insist that intrusions of privacy could be limited by restricting familial searches to only the most serious crimes, such as those committed against Deborah Sykes and Lynette White. Database search methods could also be defined to minimize restrictions on innocent parties. Finally, as Bieber emphasizes, "It's crucial to note that leads derived from DNA matches do not necessarily imply guilt or lead to conviction." Still, as in cases like the murders of Sykes and White, family DNA dragnets can significantly improve the chances of finding the genetic needle in a haystack of frustrating clues and false arrests. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref01.html Nearly 500 military DNA cases under investigation During his military trial on a rape charge at Langley Air Force Base, Staff Sgt. Haxel D. Marcenaro argued that he could not possibly have assaulted his teenage accuser. However, a civilian scientist working for the military took the stand and said DNA showed that the pair “most probably” had intercourse. The testimony was enough to convict; Marcenaro is serving a six-year prison term. Now, the Army is investigating allegations that the scientist falsified DNA test results in Marcenaro’s case and hundreds of others across the country. Two months after Marcenaro’s trial, the Army suspended the scientist, Phillip Mills. Legal experts say the ripple effects of the alleged falsified DNA testing could continue for years as more attorneys learn that Mills was involved in their cases. During Marcenaro’s two-year appeals battle that followed his trial, the military never informed Marcenaro or his attorneys of their investigation. Marcenaro exhausted all of his appeals and never had the chance to argue that the DNA testing in his case might have been tainted. “I had no idea,” said Jonathan S. Schwartz, one of Marcenaro’s appeal attorneys, in a recent interview. “They didn’t tell us anything about that.” The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command is reviewing 479 DNA cases, including Marcenaro’s and at least 15 others from Hampton Roads that were handled by Mills. Mills has been suspended from his job at the Army’s laboratory at Fort Gillem, Ga. No charges have been filed against him, and the Army is not commenting on the investigation. The first case to challenge DNA testing by Mills recently was heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, the military’s highest court. The court ruled that the defendant, a Navy man who had been based in Hawaii, is entitled to a new hearing in his sexual assault case. Hundreds more cases could be affected, military justice experts say. Without DNA evidence, Marcenaro’s case essentially boils down to he-said, she-said. According to court records, on New Year’s Eve 2002, Marcenaro and his wife made plans to go out. They hired a baby sitter, a girl under 16, to watch their children. The girl brought her pajamas and planned to stay the night. After several hours of drinking and playing cards with friends, the couple decided to stay home. When the friends left, the baby sitter fell asleep on the living room sofa. At some point in the night, the girl awoke to find Marcenaro on top of her, the court records say. Both had their pants off. The girl told him to stop, then put on her pajama bottoms and ran from the house, according to court records. Air Force security guards found her wandering around Langley, crying, at about 3:30 a.m. She said she had just been raped, according to the records. In his defense, Marcenaro claimed that in a late-night daze, he thought the girl was his wife. He testified that when he realized it was the baby sitter, he backed away before having sex. At his trial at Langley in November 2003, a nurse and a forensic child abuse expert testified that results of a physical exam showed probable penetration. Mills testified that DNA taken from a swab of Marcenaro’s pubic area matched the DNA of the girl. He concluded that the “most probable” explanation for this was that the pair had sexual intercourse. Marcenaro’s attorneys argued that the DNA could have transferred without penetration. No DNA evidence from the girl’s vaginal area was brought into evidence. Marcenaro was convicted and sentenced. Schwartz, an expert in DNA legal issues, was part of Marcenaro’s appeals team, which included three military attorneys. He suspected there were problems with the DNA evidence, but an appeals court refused to address the issue. Schwartz said, though, that he had no idea of the depth of the problems until informed by a reporter last week. “We made a big deal of the DNA,” he said in a phone interview. “Our position was that it was incompetently done.” The U.S. Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals in November dismissed Schwartz’s argument and upheld the guilty verdict and sentence. During the appeals process in 2004, Mills was under investigation by Army Criminal Investigation Command on allegations that he falsified DNA test results. Military attorneys never informed the defense team of the investigation, Schwartz said. It wasn’t until August 2005 that the lab sent a memo to all staff judge advocates alerting them to the internal investigation of Mills’ work, according to court records. “Evidently, they knew there was evidence they didn’t provide us,” Schwartz said. Air Force public affairs officials did not respond to questions about why Marcenaro’s attorneys were not notified of the investigation into Mills’ work. Mills first came under suspicion in January 2004, two months after Marcenaro’s trial. Mills was suspended after some of his work was found to be contaminated, the Army said. He was retrained and returned to the job in September 2004. In May 2005, allegations surfaced that Mills was falsifying test results. He was suspended and the following month Mills admitted making one false entry in a DNA case, the Army said. No reason was given for Mills’ suspected actions. He remains suspended pending internal audits and a review by independent agencies, which also are looking at whether other scientists at Fort Gillem may have been fudging results. The Army base near Atlanta processes DNA for all Department of Defense branches. Meanwhile, Marcenaro had his first parole hearing earlier this month. If he is denied parole, Schwartz said, “I have no doubt we’re going to file a motion to rehear the issue.” Air Force officials said that of the 479 DNA cases being reviewed by the Army Criminal Investigation Command , 93 of them were from the Air Force and two originated at Langley, including Marcenaro’s. About 119 of the cases involve Navy and Marine Corps defendants, with about 14 of those from Hampton Roads, officials said. Charges include murder, rape, robbery and other violent acts. The Army and Navy refused to release the identities of the defendants in those cases, although they are all in the military justice system, which is, by law, open to the public. Shaun P. Martin, a law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, submitted a court brief in the first – and so far only – case involving Mills’ testing procedures that was returned to a lower court for a new hearing. “There will be many, many other cases like this,” Martin said in an interview. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref02.html Iowa's new D-N-A database is helping investigators identify suspects in old crimes. So far, the database has identified suspects in 40 cases since it began a year ago. The crime-fighting tool came about because of a new law requiring felons and sex offenders to provide D-N-A samples to the state. Those samples are compared with D-N-A collected at the scenes of unsolved crimes. Some six-thousand D-N-A samples have been collected since the database started. Cedar Rapids police Lieutenant Kenneth Washburn says find suspects through D-N-A is becoming more common as the database grows. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref03.html In Nashville, the unsolved murder of a 21-year-old Knoxville woman prompted the Senate to vote unanimously Tuesday in favor of creating six new state positions to process DNA evidence. The bill had originally sought to set up a DNA database of those arrested in violent offenses. But because the state already has a backlog on DNA evidence, it must first add six processors to accelerate DNA investigations, said Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey. "We"re terribly behind in processing DNA," said Ramsey, R-Blountville. Ramsey said the DNA initiative stems from the unsolved murder of Johnia Berry. Berry, whose first name is pronounced "JOHN-uh," was stabbed to death on Dec. 6, 2004, only 12 days before she was to receive a degree with honors from East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. There is a $60,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Berry"s killer. Ramsey said he plans to bring back the DNA database proposal next year and expects that such a database could help track down offenders. "We feel confident that somebody who did this to Johnia Berry is in the system somewhere," Ramsey said. Attacked by a knife-wielding man in her Knoxville apartment, Berry died in the hallway of her apartment building after banging on neighbors" doors for help but getting no response. Joan Berry, Johnia"s mother, attended Tuesday"s Senate session and pressed Ramsey"s voting button to help unanimously pass the bill. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref04.html Cases involving DNA evidence include: Georgia - Wayne Williams, accused of being the infamous Atlanta child killer of a quarter century ago, will ask a Superior Court judge to allow DNA testing on hairs found on some of the victims that were purported to come from him and his dog, one of his lawyers said Tuesday. The lawyer, Jack Martin, said the Georgia Innocence Project has agreed to help fund DNA analysis of the hairs by a yet-to-be-determined independent lab. But the lawyers will first have to ask the court for permission to do the tests, which Martin says were not available when Williams went to trial in 1982. "We don't know if the prosecution will oppose this," Martin said. "We hope they won't. Wayne knows that this is a risky enterprise. If this turns out to be his dog's hair or his hair, it removes doubt in the case." Erik Friedly, a spokesman for Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, said Howard would need to speak with the state Attorney General's office before determining whether to support or oppose any motion for DNA testing. Between 1979 and 1981, 29 black boys and young men were killed in the Atlanta area, sparking fear throughout the region. Williams was convicted of murdering Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, and Nathaniel Cater, 27, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Evidence of a pattern of conduct in 12 of the murders was used in his trial. Afterward, officials declared Williams responsible for 22 other deaths, and those cases were closed. Williams has always maintained his innocence, and last year a local police chief said he was reopening the investigation into five of those deaths. That chief resigned recently, and the status of the investigation was left in doubt. According to Martin, investigators used microscopic analysis of the hairs to determine that they were consistent with Williams' hair and his dog's hair. Martin said DNA testing would be more exact. He said the samples remain intact and could be tested. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref05.html Illinois - A Bloomington man accused of stabbing two women to death is asking a judge for DNA testing to further his claim that someone else carried out the killings. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref06.html North Carolina - Did an innocent man come within 36 hours of being executed? That's the question raised by a May 10 N.C. Supreme Court decision that stopped last week's scheduled execution of Jerry Wayne Conner. Defense attorney Mark Kleinschmidt called it "an extraordinary moment." His co-counsel Ken Rose said, "It was just incredible." The two death penalty appellate lawyers, who work at Durham's Center for Death Penalty Litigation, were referring to the experience they had May 10 when they went to Raleigh's Central Prison just after noon to tell Conner he would not be executed the following night. That morning, the Supreme Court issued an order that stayed Conner's execution. Conner, 40, was scheduled to die by injection on May 12 at 2 a.m. for the 1990 murders of Minh Rogers and her daughter, Linda, who was also raped. On May 10, the state's highest court remanded Conner's case back to Gates County Superior Court so a DNA test can be conducted on a semen sample found on Linda Rogers' body. Because a 1991 DNA test was inconclusive, Conner's lawyers asked the state to retest the sample. A new test, called "short tandem repeat" (STR), will likely conclude if the semen was Conner's. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref11.html Massachusetts - Because he was convicted in August 2004 of assault and battery with a machete in Hingham, Carlos Seino was required to submit a DNA sample to State Police under a law that had been passed six months earlier. Last Thursday, the State Police crime lab matched Seino's sample to blood found in the pocket of Daniel DeCosta, who was robbed and beaten to death four years ago while walking home from a bar in Quincy. Yesterday, Seino, 46, dressed in a gray sweater and pajama pants, was arraigned in Quincy District Court and charged with robbery and murder. He pleaded not guilty. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref07.html Florida - A Cuban national convicted of a 1982 Key West rape will be released after DNA evidence proved he did not commit the crime, prosecutors said Monday. Orlando Bosquete, who escaped from prison twice, once for 10 years, has been serving a 55-year sentence after he was convicted of breaking into the victim's home in 1982 and raping her. More than 175 inmates have been released nationally in recent years after being cleared by DNA evidence. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref08.html Indiana - A 29-year-old man admitted Thursday to raping two women last summer – one of whom he attacked in her own home, and the other inside her car. Both women were strangers to Edward D. Miller when he raped them in July and August. He pleaded guilty to the two rape charges, as well as to being a habitual offender. Miller, 29, was arrested this year after DNA tests implicated him in the crimes. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref09.html New York - Police say Thomas Pritchard brutally raped a woman on the 200 block of Otisco Street in Syracuse last June. "It was a very brutal, stranger rape. This woman did not know this man at all. She was approached by him in the street. She walking along, it was about 12:30 at night. She got approached by this man, assaulted, beat up and dragged behind a building and brutally raped," Sgt. Tom Conellen of Syracuse Police said Thursday. Police didn't have many leads on the case, and it eventually went cold. But they got lucky when he was recently pulled in for probation. By law when certain crimes are committed, a swab is taken and DNA is collected. It then goes into a database. "This man’s DNA was put into this databank because he was put on probation. And DNA sample was put into the data bank, and eventually we got a hit on that," Connellan said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref10.html Florida - A Niceville Police Department detective believes an inmate at an Alabama prison is responsible for an eight-year-old rape case and is working toward having the man brought back to Florida to face trial here. An arrest warrant has been issued for Kelvin Lamar Moore, 26, currently serving a life term without parole at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Ala. According to reports, a DNA sample taken from a 1998 Niceville assault was entered into CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, in 2001. Last year investigators were notified there was a possible match. Niceville Detective Christine Stalnaker went to Atmore and obtained a DNA sample from Moore. A match, Stalnaker called "off the charts," was confirmed two months ago. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref12.html New York - A man convicted of killing a community activist 10 years ago was freed Tuesday after DNA tests tied the slaying to another man. "All I can say is God is good," said Douglas Warney, 44, bent over in a wheelchair with advanced AIDS. Warney, who has an eighth-grade education and an IQ of 68, had confessed details about the 1996 New Year's Day stabbing of a local Million Man March organizer, William Beason that police insisted only the killer could know. But Warney's defenders argued that he had parroted details two detectives gave him in an interrogation room at a time when he was stricken with AIDS-related dementia. Attempts to perform DNA tests that prosecutors first blocked in court in 2004 recently produced evidence pointing to a prison inmate, Eldred Johnson Jr., as the culprit. Authorities say Johnson has confessed to killing Beason two weeks after slashing the throat of his landlord in Utica - a killing he pleaded guilty to in 1998. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref13.html New York - A man who broke into a Bayville grocery store three years ago was arrested and charged in the burglary when investigators matched his DNA to blood left behind when he cut himself on a broken store window, the police said. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref14.html Georgia - A third Duke University lacrosse player was indicted in a rape case involving an exotic dancer, triggering an emotional — and unusual — public declaration of innocence from the accused before he turned himself in to police. The 23-year-old — joined by his attorney, parents and grim-faced teammates — held a news conference Monday on the Durham courthouse steps. In a voice tremulous and emphatic, he said that he and two other players who were indicted last month on similar charges would be exonerated because "it did not happen." Ohio - It was a happy Mother's Day for a Canton, Ohio woman Sunday. Paula Bennett welcomed her 29-year-old son Chris Bennett home from prison after the Ohio Innocence Project helped him overturn what they call a wrongful conviction. In May of 2001 Bennett and his friend Ronald Young were drinking and driving in a van. They crashed in wet conditions and Young died. A witness put him near the driver's seat and prosecutors believed Bennett had been driving. They charged him with aggravated vehicular homicide. Bennett had no memory of what happened and pleaded guilty to the charge of aggravated vehicular manslaughter. In the months after the crash his memory came back and says he realized he hadn't been driving, but he had already pled guilty. The Ohio Innocence Project led by University of Cincinnati law students took up his case and DNA evidence was taken from the windshield revealed he had been in the passenger seat. The blood and hair found on the passenger side belonged to Bennett, not Young. "I knew I was innocent but just nobody would believe me and nobody really cared," said Bennett. Despite the new DNA evidence, the prosecutor in the case actually wanted to retry the case. The appellate court allowed him to reverse his guilty plea. But rather than go through another lengthy process and risk losing, Bennett pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and is now free with time served. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref16.html Missouri - A convicted rapist has been found guilty in the death of a teenage girl 17 years ago after DNA information from a national database linked him to the crime. Mack A. Calhoun, 35, was found guilty on Friday of first-degree murder for the death of 17-year-old Renee Weathersby. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref17.html An FBI forensics expert said Thursday that John Allen Muhammad's DNA matched samples taken from the sight for a Bushmaster rifle used in the 2002 sniper killings and was a possible match for DNA from other sniper evidence. Muhammad's DNA was found on the sight, which was in a duffel bag in Muhammad's Chevrolet Caprice when he and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested Oct. 24, 2002 after the three-week shooting spree, said FBI DNA inspector Brendan Shea. Muhammad's DNA was also a potential match for some of the genetic material found on the butt of the Bushmaster, as well as a pen and a bag of raisins from two different shooting scenes. Malvo's DNA was recovered from several spots on the gun. The testimony came as prosecutors began building their scientific case against Muhammad for six Maryland sniper killings in October 2002. Jurors have already heard details about the six crimes, along with four other sniper deaths and three woundings in the Washington area during the three-week stretch. Muhammad, who is acting as his own lawyer, continued his aggressive questioning of witnesses Thursday. He bombarded Shea with questions, sometimes demanding just a yes or no answer, as he tried to discredit the investigator's forensic results. At one point, Muhammad and Assistant State's Attorney Vivek Chopra shouted at each other as Chopra tried to object. Muhammad suggested the tests may be flawed, saying authorities did not take away DNA samples from Muhammad and Malvo to compare to the evidence until several weeks after Shea said he conducted his comparisons. Muhammad implied the samples Shea used for the tests, just days after the arrest, were not his. "Isn't it true that if you did not have my DNA on that day, you could not have tested it?" Muhammad asked. Shea said the sample he had was labeled as Muhammad's. Muhammad has been convicted and sentenced to death in Virginia for his role in the sniper spree in the Washington area that left 10 dead and three wounded. His current trial is for the six killings that occurred in Montgomery County. Malvo is serving a life term for another Virginia sniper killing and is charged with the same six Maryland killings. Source: http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/email_newsletter/vol_19_may_06/vol19_ref18.html Did You Know? Topic: GE Healthcare launches new DNA amplification technique to maximize PCR specificity GE Healthcare has introduced the illustra(tm) Hot Start Master Mix, a novel approach to amplifying target DNA sequences that provides a greatly increased level of PCR specificity compared to conventional techniques. The key to the improved specificity and efficiency of the Hot Start Master Mix is its novel mode of action. This innovative system achieves hot start activation by sequestering primer until the template DNA is denatured. It then releases the PCR primers, and the cycle of amplification-primer: template annealing, extension, and denaturation-then proceeds using traditional thermal cycling protocols. Unlike hot start PCR systems that rely on chemically modified or antibody-based methods, HotStart Master Mix does not interfere with the thermostable polymerase, resulting in no loss of enzyme efficiency. By effectively inhibiting primer: dimer formation without compromising enzyme function, Hot Start Master Mix maximizes target amplification specificity and efficiency for better overall PCR results. "The broad range of GE Healthcare customers that rely on PCR amplification as a critical research tool will benefit from the high specificity, accuracy, and PCR product yield achieved with the illustra Hot Start Master Mix," says Rupert Jones, global marketing manager at GE Healthcare. "The system's performance, reproducibility, ease-of-use and relative low cost offer advantages unsurpassed by competing PCR amplification systems. The primer sequestration technique used for hot start activation maintains sample integrity better than chemical inactivation or antibody blocking approaches, giving customers greater confidence in downstream processes." For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com. The DNA Informant is a free bi-weekly email newsletter, published by DNA Labs International. DNA Labs International is a private, ISO 17025 Accredited, Forensic Serology and DNA Identity Testing Laboratory, founded in 2004 by a Board Certified Fellow in Molecular Biology with over two decades of experience in Forensic Serology and DNA Analysis in United States Crime Labs. Our primary mission is to help our clients identify and prosecute criminals within their jurisdiction by providing timely, accurate and cost effective DNA testing results. To do this we created an organization based on industry best practices from over 20 State Crime Labs around the United States. We are located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just minutes from the Fort Lauderdale airport. DNA Labs International’s services are now available for individual cases and outsourcing contracts. Please keep us in mind as you start to consider your outsourcing needs, regular and rush cases and DNA case review. Editor: Karen Daurie Karen.Daurie@DNALabsInternational.com If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please click on http://www.dnalabsinternational.com/remove_newsletter.html
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