The Next Chapter In Crime Fiction

DNA evidence can be faked?  The plot possibilities are endless:

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show
By ANDREW POLLACK

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.

Here is Trick One:

The scientists fabricated DNA samples two ways. One required a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification.

Of course, a drinking cup or piece of hair might itself be left at a crime scene to frame someone, but blood or saliva may be more believable.

The authors of the paper took blood from a woman and centrifuged it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. To the remaining red cells they added DNA that had been amplified from a man’s hair.

Since red cells do not contain DNA, all of the genetic material in the blood sample was from the man. The authors sent it to a leading American forensics laboratory, which analyzed it as if it were a normal sample of a man’s blood.

Although Nucleix is offering their own test to validate a DNA result, one might wonder whether the forensics lab would pick up on the absence of white blood cells.

Trick Two is potentially more troublesome, depending on how much confidence one has in our law enforcement people and their database security:

The other technique relied on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person’s genome.

From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.

And the distinguishing test:

Nucleix’s test to tell if a sample has been fabricated relies on the fact that amplified DNA — which would be used in either deception — is not methylated, meaning it lacks certain molecules that are attached to the DNA at specific points, usually to inactivate genes.

More grist for the defense attorney's mill.

Comments

[Rich]

John Edwards please call Rielle.

[Thomas Collins]

No surprise here. The notion that science somehow removes us from dealing with human frailties and fickleness, as eloquently described in Scripture, is a longstanding and wrongheaded notion. Science can serve as the basis of technologies that to some extent alleviate the impact of Nature's wrath on humans. Science, for those attuned to math, spatial relations and experimentation, can be a fine activity. Science will never spare humans from the gritty uncertainty in figuring out who done right and who done wrong. Science is a tool which, like all tools, is subject to misuse.

[georg felis]

Just because something is possible, does not mean it is likely. An out-of-control prosecutor will find it much easier to simply steal-and-plant, or falsify test results. Or the classic Evidence-less Public Smear that Nifong did so well.

[Tregonsee]

So we were wrong about OJ?

[M. L. Kiner]

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[Annoying Old Guy]

I would think that DNA would still count as negative evidence. That is, I can make a crime scene look like Clarice was there, but I can't make it look like she wasn't there if she was. So if there's biological samples and no match for Clarice, then she's still got a good case for innocence.