Low Cost and Rapid DNA-Based Biometric Device

Sensitive site exploitation activities are focused on collecting forensic evidence left behind by persons involved in terrorist or other illegal activity, and the biological evidence recovered is often referred to as"touch DNA samples". Touch samples include fingerprints, skin cells found on clothing (e.g. a shirt collar), and oral epithelial cells found on the opening of a soda can or the rim of a drinking glass. The quantity of DNA that is recovered from touch DNA samples is highly variable, ranging from less than 6 picograms (pg)the amount of DNA in a single human cell, to 100 ng. The proposed Rapid DNA-Based Biometric Device will include subsystems for sample preparation (cell lysis and purification), multiplex PCR amplification using NDIS/CODIS-compatible STR primer sets, electrophoretic length separation of PCR products, and laser-induced fluorescence detection of the products to yield electrophoretic traces. These subsystems will be based on microfluidic instrumentation and biochips previously developed and tested by NetBio for the evaluation of forensic samples containing much larger quantities of DNA than present within touch samples. Accordingly, the focus of the proposed work is to adapt the existing technology to the generation of STR profiles from touch samples.