Fake DNA Evidence
The value of DNA evidence has to be seen in light of recent cases where criminals planted fake DNA samples at crime scenes. In one case, a criminal even planted fake DNA evidence in his own body: Dr. John Schneeberger raped one of his sedated patients in 1992 and left semen on her underwear. Police drew what they believed to be Schneeberger's blood and compared its DNA against the crime scene semen DNA on three occasions, never showing a match. It turned out that he had surgically inserted a Penrose drain into his arm and filled it with foreign blood and anticoagulants.
The functional analysis of genes and their coding sequences (open reading frames ) typically requires that each ORF be expressed, the encoded protein purified, antibodies produced, phenotypes examined, intracellular localization determined, and interactions with other proteins sought. In a study conducted by the life science company Nucleix and published in the journal Forensic Science International, scientists found that an In vitro synthesized sample of DNA matching any desired genetic profile can be constructed using standard molecular biology techniques without obtaining any actual tissue from that person.
In the case of the Phantom of Heilbronn, police detectives found DNA traces from the same woman on various crime scenes in Austria, Germany and France — among them murders, burglaries and robberies. Only after the DNA of the "woman" matched the DNA sampled from the burned body of a male asylum seeker in France, detectives began to have serious doubts about the DNA evidence. In that case, DNA traces were already present on the cotton swabs used to collect the samples at the crime scene, and the swabs had all been produced at the same factory in Austria. The company's product specification said that the swabs were guaranteed to be sterile, but not DNA-free.
Read more about this topic: DNA Profiling
Famous quotes containing the words fake, dna and/or evidence:
“So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Here [in London, history] ... seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“No doubt Jews are most obnoxious creatures. Any competent historian or psychoanalyst can bring a mass of incontrovertible evidence to prove that it would have been better for the world if the Jews had never existed. But I, as an Irishman, can, with patriotic relish, demonstrate the same of the English. Also of the Irish.... We all live in glass houses. Is it wise to throw stones at the Jews? Is it wise to throw stones at all?”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)