Ultimately for the families
However, Parsons is quick to stress that although the science is important, ultimately it’s about the difference that it makes to families and individuals. He and his team are hugely motivated by the consequences of their work for families of missing persons.
“Our efforts bring a degree of resolution for these anguished people. We may not cure anything, but in many instances we can answer some of their most fundamental questions and resolve some of the causes of their ongoing trauma.”
But equally importantly, Parsons appreciates what ICMP’s work contributes to justice. “Where perpetrators believed they would be able to remove people from the human experience, we provide irrefutable forensic evidence of identity. This means that perpetrators can be held accountable.”
With the new laboratory in The Hague, Parsons and his team hope to build on these capabilities. He is eager to leverage the potential of next-generation sequencing (NGS), which he believes will address many of the existing challenges in delivering large-scale missing persons identification.
Parsons explains: “There are three problems that currently hold us back; the unit cost per test; the difficulty of working with highly degraded samples and the amount of genetic information needed to confirm identity via distant family members. Advancements in next-generation sequencing clearly offer the potential to address these issues.
To turn the promise of NGS into reality, Parsons and his team are focusing on developing novel Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP)-based testing methods. These will identify singular mutations in the human genome and provide greater power for establishing kinship when used in large numbers.
The objective is to develop highly homogeneous and cost-effective laboratory mechanisms that can be applied irrespective of the level of sample degradation. Ultimately, he hopes to make this feasible at around one tenth of the current cost by pooling samples using molecular barcoding mechanisms.
Many in the field of forensic genetics foresee that an SNP-based approach may best capitalize on the strengths of NGS, and Parsons believes that with carefully directed effort it may even replace STR analysis as the standard approach in current human ID applications. Certainly, he views NGS as the way forward, not only for the ICMP but also for the entire forensic community, allowing it to address some of the major existing challenges in missing persons investigations.
