DNA science that may make photofits a thing of the past
Detectives tracking murderers, rapists and other criminals may be
able to reconstruct their faces from a speck of blood left at the crime
scene.
The significant advance in forensic investigation has been brought a
step closer by scientists who believe they can produce portraits of
suspects from a scrap of their DNA.
The development would mean inaccurate photofits and unreliable
eyewitness testimony would be consigned to history.
Researchers in the Netherlands working with photographs of
individuals and MRI scans of their heads have identified genetic factors
that contribute to facial appearance.
This technique could one day give police the capacity to reconstruct
the faces of suspects as easily as their fingerprints and distribute
them nationwide. This could deter offenders and lead to a fall in crime.
The researchers from the Erasmus University Medical Centre in
Rotterdam identified nine facial "landmarks", including the position of
the cheekbones, the distance between the eyes, and the height, width and
length of the nose.
By analysing the genomes of almost 10,000 individuals, they found
five genes that controlled the positioning of the nine landmarks which
affected their facial appearance.
Professor Manfred Kayser, who led the study published in the online
journal Public Library of Science Genetics, said: "These are exciting
first results that mark the beginning of the genetic understanding of
human facial morphology. Perhaps sometime it will be possible to draw a
phantom portrait of a person solely from his or her DNA, which provides
interesting applications such as in forensics."
Professor Kayser said it was already possible to predict eye and hair
colour by analysing samples of DNA. Reconstructing a portrait would be
much more difficult.
"We only found five genes because we had to limit the scope of our
study [to the nine landmark points].
We expect there are many more.
This is a simplification - but we had to start somewhere. It is a
very ambitious goal.
But in principle it should be possible. We know the more genes you
share the more alike you are - identical twins are very alike. It just
depends how difficult it is to find the genes.
"It would mark the end of the photofit picture and be an improvement
on eyewitness reports, which are not believed to be reliable. You
wouldn't have the problems with eye witnesses misremembering what had
happened, or displaying biased recollection. It would be more accurate."
The study was carried out on behalf of the International Visible Trait
Genetics Consortium, co-chaired by Professor Kayser, and was supported
with funding from research organisations in Australia, Canada, and
Europe including the UK.
The aim of the consortium is to find the genetic factors that
determine human visible traits.
- The Independent
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