Law enforcement investigators and the families of missing people stand to benefit from a new DNA testing breakthrough announced this week by the California Department of Justice.
The new testing technology allows crime lab technicians to fully sequence mitochondrial DNA, which makes it easier to test samples from human remains that have decayed beyond the point at which current DNA testing is
generally effective.
“Anything we can do to help families find closure is critical,” Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a news release Monday. “This breakthrough will help make a direct difference in people’s lives.”
Department officials said theirs is the first state crime lab in North America to be accredited to use the new test, which allows technicians to fully sequence mitochondrial DNA.
Typically, crime labs turn to mitochondrial DNA testing when the remains under examination have been so thoroughly decomposed that all or most of the usable nuclear DNA has been degraded beyond the point of usefulness,
according to Justice Department officials.
And until now, tests were only able to analyze about 5 percent of the mitochondrial DNA genome, which is passed along from mothers to their children.
By sequencing the entire genome, technicians will be more likely to identify the remains of previously unknown people by comparing mitochondrial DNA provided by families to evidence from human remains collected by investigators, according to state officials.
This type of testing is useful in gleaning identifying information from evidence collected in cold cases, missing persons, mass disasters and “small pieces of evidence containing little biological material,” according to the FBI’s DNA Casework website.
Last year, 42,454 adults and 76,696 children were reported missing in California, according to the state Department of Justice.
12 comments
It’s another tool in the box but is not a magic bullet. As the article says, it’s only passed from mothers to their children. It’s also more of a loose pattern match. You will be loosely similar to your siblings, to your children, and to your mother, grandmother, great grandmother, etc. going back many generations. It’s a tool that can be used to see if a set of remains MAY from a specific family line on the maternal side or that the remains are not related to the family.
The article does not say if or why 100% is better than 5%. The 5% technique extracts and sequences that segment of the DNA that has proven to be the most forensically useful. The other 95% may well be noise from a forensic viewpoint.
Even Xavier Becerra can do something good for a change. I think this is a very good idea even though it may be intrusive. The way things are going in the world I guess that won’t make that much of a difference. They already know where you are and who you associate with.
Salty here.
Gather all them criminals up and lock em up.
Hey GAV…Build more JAILS…
Salty OUT!!!
This is a very good idea, and I don’t think it’s intrusive at all. It’s never too late to solve a case.
That would be nice if that is all it is used for. We have no idea what the future brings.
the slave trade shall be rendered
They don’t even mention or care about using this on criminal cases,its almost impossible to get arrested and prosecuted in Calif,so they are getting ready to disband all police and just let it be a liberal crimewave utopia.
If its impossible to get arrested and prosecuted, then who is it that is filling our prisons?
They all got arrested years ago and got long sentences.Nice save.
How about we do something for the living first. There are 13,000+ untested rape kits in California alone right now.
http://www.endthebacklog.org/California
That is crazy as all get out. Makes you wonder what they do with our money.
I’ll go ya one more Ricardo, imagine there were 13,000 untested kits for crimes that primarily affected men. You can’t, ‘cause there wouldn’t be 13,000 untested kits for crimes that primarily affected men.
Someone try and change my mind. 🤔
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