20100925 Getting ID From DNA (1)

Getting ID From DNA

A science lab achievement gave justice a new tool in law courts

Since the late 1800s, authorities have used fingerprints to identify individuals, especially in criminal investigations and other identification-based legal cases. But fingerprinting changed forever when England's Sir Alec Jeffreys discovered a way of identifying individuals using their DNA: DNA fingerprinting. All humans belong to the same species, so the majority of genetic information in people's DNA is identical. But certain sections of human DNA - sections that give each individual unique characteristics - vary astronomically from person to person. Discovering these sections in his laboratory on a September morning in 1984, Jeffreys immediately understood their potential, and DNA fingerprinting was born.

Lawyers applied the discovery to legal cases almost immediately. The following spring, DNA fingerprinting resolved an immigration case by proving a young boy's identity as a U.K. citizen. Then in 1986, DNA fingerprinting provided the evidence necessary to prove one man's innocence and another man's guilt in a murder case. Since then, this science has helped settle countless cases and investigations - establishing parent-child relationships, putting criminals in jail and freeing those wrongly accused of crimes. Without a doubt, DNA fingerprinting has forever revolutionized the way we identify people and fight crime.