DNA tests will help police put a face to suspects
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Your support makes all the difference.A drop of blood or a speck of dandruff left at the scene of a crime is being used for the first time to help the police build up an image of a criminal's physical appearance.
Several criminal investigations in Britain are now using a revolutionary approach to DNA analysis that will soon allow the police to draw a picture of a person's likely facial characteristics from their genes alone.
It is hoped that DNA will one day provide the police with a full description of a criminal, including probable height and weight and whether they have a long face, high cheekbones, pointed chin, Roman nose or floppy earlobes.
The Forensic Science Service is already using a new DNA test that can identify whether a person is likely to have red hair, and an American company has announced that it has perfected a technique that can make a good guess as to whether a criminal's eyes are brown, blue or green.
DNAPrint, a biotechnology firm in Florida, claims to have developed the first test for eye colour based on a statistical analysis of DNA fragments.
Conventional DNA tests establish a person's identity by matching one genetic "fingerprint" with that of a known individual, but they offer no clues tophysical appearance.
Recent advances in DNA analysis, aided by the completion of the human genome project, are now allowing forensic scientists to go a step further by indicating the probability of the suspect being of one appearance or another.
DNA can already be used to determine the sex of a suspect. Kevin Sullivan, head of research at the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, said the new test for red hair was helping police to tackle a number of serious crimes.
"It's a trickle of cases at the moment but it's just the start of a whole battery of intelligence tests that we hope to introduce to help build up a picture of a person from their DNA," Mr Sullivan said.
"The ultimate aim is to build up a genetic photofit of an individual from genetic markers that a person has inherited but obviously it won't always be a perfect fit. If someone plays rugby on Saturday afternoon, that will have more to do with the current shape of their ears or nose than genetics."
The red hair study, led by Eileen Grimes, was published in the journal Forensic Science International. The team said that being able to eliminate people with red hair from a major criminal investigation – or indeed concentrate on them – would result in the more efficient use of police resources. "As more genes associated with physical characteristics are identified and researched, our ability to build up an increasingly detailed description of an individual from a DNA sample will develop," they added.
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