Lengthening the Arm of the Law with Biochip Technology

The use of biochips to make DNA-typing an even more effective crime-fighting tool is the focus of cooperative work between Illinois State Police Department forensics experts and Argonne researchers.

Collecting and analyzing the evidence that will find and convict a criminal is a painstaking process. Technicians work a crime scene armed with swabs, lights, cameras and other tools to collect everything that could be a clue.

Analysis of blood, fibers, dirt and other minutiae takes time, which can frustrate those anxious to catch a criminal. Yet the precision of such results as DNA evidence can be well worth the wait. Argonne’s biochip technology offers the prospect of faster DNA analysis, even with samples that are difficult to handle.

“This is the next step in DNA technology,” said Barbara Llewellyn, assistant director of the police department’s research and development laboratory in Springfield, Ill., and a visiting scientist at Argonne. “Using biochips, we hope to provide more tests in less time.”

Specially designed biochips contain specific probes for mitochondrial DNA(MtDNA), which directs protein synthesis in the body and is inherited maternally. MtDNA was used, among other things, to establish the identity of the skeletons of Czar Nicholas II, the last Russian monarch, and his family.

The researchers have been working over the past year to develop an MtDNA biochip. Llewellyn expects the test will be available for casework in another two and one-half to three years.

MtDNA also addresses one shortfall of Short Tandem Repeat (STR) DNA typing, the method now generally in forensic use: STR DNA is not useful for degraded samples or for hair strands that do not include roots. MtDNA typing can work in both situations.

“This is a good additional tool,” said Llewellyn.

For more information please contact Richard Greb at 630-252-5565

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