Search

Human and animal hairs have been used in forensic investigations for over a century. Hair is stable under adverse natural conditions; hence, it is often recovered at the crime scene, and it is necessary to determine whether the hair is of human or animal origin. Morphological and genetic characteristics are useful to differentiate human hair from animal hair. In the present study, we analyzed the distinguishing characteristics of hair of various species. In addition, we explore species identification by cytochrome c oxidase I mitochondrial gene analysis. We confirm that both the microscopic and molecular analyses of hairs are useful in forensic investigations.

The Applied Biosystems™ NGM Detect™ PCR Amplification Kit is a new Human Identification solution with increased sensitivity in comparison to NGM SElect Kit. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of the NGM Detect™ kit compared to AmpFlSTR® NGM Select™ and AmpFlSTR® Identifiler® Plus kits, using a variety of casework samples. The study is being carried out on samples obtained from forensic cases such as sexual violence, exhumations, paternity, homicides and suspicious deaths. The sample typologies refer to: buccal swabs, nail swabs, swabs deriving from sexual violence, human biological tissues and liquids, clothes and objects of common use. The preliminary results show that the combined use of NGM Detect and NGM Select kits provide maximum information in a dual amplification strategy, as the size of several markers are complementary. Furthermore, the NGM Detect and NGM Select kits appear more sensitive than the Identifiler Plus kit. In conclusion, together with the NGM Select™ kit, the NGM Detect™ kit offers the possibility of recovering a lot of genetic information from degraded samples, delivering the best likelihood ratio value of identity compared to other ESS-focused solutions in the market today.