Forensic genetics and genomics: Much more than just a human affair

While traditional forensic genetics has been oriented towards using human DNA in criminal investigation and civil court cases, it currently presents a much wider application range, including not only legal situations sensu stricto but also and, increasingly often, to preemptively avoid judicial processes. Despite some difficulties, current forensic genetics is progressively incorporating the analysis of nonhuman genetic material to a greater extent. The analysis of this material—including other animal species, plants, or microorganisms—is now broadly used, providing ancillary evidence in criminalistics in cases such as animal attacks, trafficking of species, bioterrorism and biocrimes, and identification of fraudulent food composition, among many others. Here, we explore how nonhuman forensic genetics is being revolutionized by the increasing variety of genetic markers, the establishment of faster, less error-burdened and cheaper sequencing technologies, and the emergence and improvement of models, methods, and bioinformatics facilities.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  PLoS Genetics

• Publication date

  2017-09-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Law, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006960PMID 28934201PMCID 5608170
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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