Using methylation patterns to determine origin of biological material and age


In this QIAGEN sponsored webinar, our guest speakers from the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Crime Lab and Florida International University (FIU) discuss their research on the potential of epigenetic methylation as a procedure for body fluid identification and age estimation from DNA left at crime scenes. Several approaches have been studied, including an analysis of methyl array data and an initial validation of procedures such as pyrosequencing and real-time PCR. The presentation focuses on a number of tissue-specific epigenetic markers for body fluid and age determination with a promise of future integration of these markers into the forensic lab due to the simplicity of analysis and the ease of application.