Applicattion of Molecular Genetic Methods within Forensic Science: Retrospective and Perspective

For more than last twenty years, different methods of forensic DNA testing (known as DNA fingerprinting) have been widely established and accepted as the standard procedure in various police and court investigations. Data obtained through this analysis are extremely reliable and could be used as a very powerful tool that produces valuable results. Forensic genetics focuses on applications of molecular genetic findings in a legal context, and it involves the processing of individual traces and results obtained by genetic methods with the aim of reconstructing the course of events as well as the precise individualization of those involved within the judicial, police and other investigative realm. Even though the foundations of forensic genetics date back before the first official DNA analysis in 1985, the first PCR thermocycler that simulated all means necessary for the conduction of all phases of the PCR method was conducted not long after that. What followed in the coming two decades was a significantly rapid progress in the molecular genetic advancement in laboratory methods that resulted in the advancement of forensic DNA analysis from. Even these days technological developments, such as automatization of DNA extraction procedures, speeding up of quantification and amplification phases, introducing of next generation sequencing, will possibly initiate a revolution in this field of science. Efforts of the automation in the field of forensic genetics is focused in the direction of establishing platforms for more informative, cheep, simple, fast and high-throughput analysis. Therefore, we highlight this technological evolution from what once used to be an involved procedure that yielded fewer results in as long as three days to the advancement of biotechnological tools that enable rapid obtainment of tens of thousand-fold more data within as little as a few hours.