Human identification & forensic analyses of degraded or low level DNA

Westen, A.A. (2013)

Doctoral Thesis

DNA-based human identification is employed in varying situations, such as disaster victim identification, relationship testing and forensic analyses. When DNA is of low quality and/or quantity, standard methods for DNA profiling may not suffice. The research described in this thesis is aimed at the development of additional or alternative methods to extract information from a person__s DNA. The explored methods include: optimised sampling, the use of smaller and/or other types of DNA markers, increased analysis sensitivity, DNA repair, and combining marker sets. These studies have been performed to get closer to the answer regarding the question: __To whom belongs this body?__

• Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)
• Short tandem repeat (STR)
• Molecular biology
• Low template (LT) DNA
• Human identification
• Forensic science
• Forensic genetics
• Disaster victim identification (DVI)
• Degraded DNA
• DNA repair enzyme

• All authors: Westen, A.A.
• Supervisor: Knijff, P. de
• Co-supervisor: Sijen, L.M.T.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden University
• Date: 2013-06-06
• ISBN (print): 9789082066203
• Sponsorship: The research described in this thesis has been performed within the R&D group of the Human biological traces department of the Netherlands Forensic Institute. Part of this work was supported by a grant from the Netherlands Genomics Initiative / Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) within the framework of the Forensic Genomics Consortium Netherlands. Publication of this thesis was financially supported by the Netherlands Forensic Institute.