There is No Navel of the World: Looking Beyond Borders to Interpret Y-STR Evidence
Today’s blog is written by guest bloggers, Lutz Roewer and Sascha Willuweit, Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, Dept. Forensic Genetics, Berlin, Germany. Reposted from The ISHI Report with permission. The reporting of Y-STR results with meaningful statistics requires a look beyond the borders, borders of the standard forensic mathematics practiced for decades […]
Under the Microscope – Jianye Ge
Y chromosome STR haplotypes have been used in assisting forensic investigations primarily for identification and male lineage determination. The Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM) Lineage Marker Committee published interpretation guidelines for Y-STR typing, which provide helpful guidance. However, these guidelines do not address the issue of kinship analysis with Y-STR haplotypes. Because […]
Genetic Structure of the Male Mestiza Population of the State Of Puebla, Identified By Y-STR Markers
The allelic and haplotipal frequencies of 269 unrelated male individuals residing in the State of Puebla were analyzed, based on 25 STR markers of the “Y” chromosome included in the amplification kit Y Filer® Plus (Thermo Fisher Scientific), identifying 268 different haplotypes. The DYF387S1 and DYS385 markers had the highest genetic diversity at 0.9604 and […]
Forensic Scientist of Note: Dr. Lutz Roewer
Dr. Lutz Roewer is one of the renowned forensic scientists who transformed DNA forensics through studying the Y-chromosome and demonstrating the value of Y-STR analysis for forensic casework. The use of a YSTR profile can help by excluding male suspects, or indicating multiple male contributors, or provide information that can be used to help find […]
Analyzing History – Putting the Pieces Together One Run at a Time
Dr. Angie Ambers is a full-time forensic geneticist for the UNT Center for Human Identification, specializing in characterization and identification of contemporary, historical, and archaeological human skeletal remains. She’s written a few articles for the ISHI blog detailing how she’s been able to obtain DNA profiles from historical remains, such as an American Civil War […]
Reducing Sexual Assault Kit Backlogs Using an Automated Protocol
Sorenson Forensics is a high-throughput private laboratory that processes hundreds of cases every day. Much of our workload comes from backlogged sexual assault collection kits from across the country. We “Y Screen” almost every piece of evidence in a kit, looking for presence of male DNA in female source samples. Unfortunately for our lab, our […]
Can the Rapidly Mutating Loci in the Yfiler Plus® Amplification Kit Differentiate the Members of a Large Family?
There are some forensic cases where Y STRs are the only useful evidence. For example, if a female victim scratches her male attacker as she struggles with him, she may pick up some male DNA under her fingernails, but it would be expected that there will be a large amount of her own female DNA […]
