• In violent crimes, body fluids or small pieces of tissue may be left at the scene

o laboratories can determine the blood type or tissue type by using

antibodies to detect specific cell-surface proteins.
o Drawbacks…(elaborate out loud)
• DNA testing, though, can identify the guilty individual with a high degree of
certainty,
o DNA sequence of every person is unique (except for identical twins).
• Genetic markers that vary in the population can be analyzed for a given person to
determine that individual's unique set of genetic markers, or genetic profile.
• FBI started applying DNA technology in forensics in 1988
o RFLP analysis by Southern blotting
o short tandem repeats (STRs)
• The Innocence Project
o nonprofit organization dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions
o uses STR analysis of archived samples from crime scenes to revisit old
cases

• Reliability?
o greater the number of markers examined in a DNA sample, the more
likely it is that the profile is unique to one individual
o using STR analysis with 13 markers, the probability of two people having
identical DNA profiles is somewhere between one chance in 10 billion
and one in several trillion