Dna profiling game

What DNA evidence can you find at the crime scene and how can you analyse it? Can you find the murderer? The game is most suitable for students aged [note that the reviewer suggested using the activity with older students]. You will need time to print, cut and laminate the resources, 30 minutes to play the game, and additional time for discussion. Before introducing the game, explain how DNA fingerprinting works.

Do not forget to point out the differences between DNA fingerprinting profiling and sequencing the complete genome. To run the game, you will need the following materials, all of which can be downloaded from the Gene Jury w1 website. Give each of the students the statement card and DNA profile card for their character.

Optionally, one student represents the victim: lying on the floor with a knife or substitute nearby. The rest of the class are the investigators, working in groups of about four. Give these students the worksheets. The teacher plays the role of the chief inspector and the forensics laboratory. Last night in the local hotel, a terrible crime was discovered. Peter, a well-known businessman, was found dead in his hotel room by two guests, Alex and Olivia, at 11pm.

They immediately telephoned the police, who arrived soon afterwards. The pathologist examined the body, and estimated the time of death at 9pm, not long after Peter had finished dinner. Peter had held a dinner party that evening with some friends to celebrate finishing writing, by hand, a book about his life.

The party had taken place in the hotel dining room with his five friends, who had all stayed that night in the hotel. After the police arrived, the five guests and the hotel maid were woken, and assembled downstairs to be questioned. In his former life, Eric had been arrested several times for carrying and taking drugs. He had decided to forget his old life, and he now owned his own restaurant.

Brainstorming is how engineers come up with creative ideas. Have them raise their hands to respond. Record their ideas on the board. Worksheet : Have students complete the activity worksheet; review their answers to gauge their mastery of the subject. Engineering Analysis : Have students act as biomedical engineers and analyze the results of the DNA profiling for the police investigators. Have each team state which suspect their DNA profiling implicates in the crime.

How certain are their results? Next, have the students write a brief one-page report on their results that they might deliver to the police investigators. In this report, they should explain the outcomes of the DNA profiling, how they arrived at their results, and how they determined the certainty of their results. Sometimes it helps to cut out the robbery evidence CODIS data columns from the worksheet and hold them right next to the suspect data columns, making it easier to compare for matches of repeating base pair sequences.

Have students conduct the online, animated Catch a Criminal activity that includes a real-world 13 CODIS site analysis using three suspects. With the popularity of the CSI television shows, students may have some understanding of forensic evidence. Along these lines, have students investigate the creative tools, equipment and processes used to accurately collect and examine DNA evidence for crime, paternity and ancestry investigations.

What is your ancestry? Are we all related? With the advances in understanding DNA, and the availability of engineered collection and analysis tools, more and more people are aware of genetic genealogy.

Have students investigate the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project — an anthropological study to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of volunteers across five continents.

Basic Biology of DNA. Accessed February 24, Crime Lab FAQs. DNA Casework. DNA Profiling. Putting DNA to Work.

However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the Department of Education or National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Why Teach Engineering in K? Find more at TeachEngineering. Quick Look. Print this activity. Suggest an edit. Discuss this activity. Curriculum in this Unit Units serve as guides to a particular content or subject area. Muscles, Oh My! TE Newsletter. Subscribe to TE Newsletter. Micro-satellites or STRs are generally more practical to be used for individualization see below. Extraction of DNA from cells is a relatively straightforward process. However DNA is frequently rapidly degraded once it is no longer within a living organism.

A spectacular advance has been the discovery of the PCR, which permits potentially unlimited amplification of minute traces of DNA, such as may be found in small samples of dry bone or skin or that is contained in traces of body fluids. An inevitable consequence of this massive amplification potential is its sensitivity to contamination, particularly if the same forensic laboratory and technicians are handling samples from both the suspect and the crime scene.

Some idea of the potential extent of this problem can be gained from the fact that technicians frequently amplify their own DNA. Thus strict guidelines must be adhered to when using this method. STRs are highly polymorphic, and alleles of the STR loci are differentiated by the number of copies of the repeat sequence within each of the STR locus.

The more STR loci being used for typing, the greater the discrimination value since the likelihood that a single individual has an identical STR profile, that possesses the exact same number of repeat units for all the STR being analyzed, with another individual taken at random in the population becomes extremely rare. The STRs chosen and validated for typing for personal identification contain tetranucleotide repeats comprising of alleles of discrete size.

Commercially robust and validated STR multiplex kits are available. The kits also include allelic ladder for each STR locus, which incorporates all the alleles of the STR locus so far known. This helps in the precise assignment of each allele and also in assigning the allele number.

The microsatellite alleles for a particular locus are codominant. In a given individual there are 2 alleles which are inherited in a Mendelian fashion. This means that an individual receives one allele from the mother and the other allele from the father. The two alleles are either heterozygous - the alleles are different or, homozygous - both the alleles are of the same type. In the case of a heterozygous situation, the individual shows two bands indicating the two different alleles, and, in a homozygous situation the individual shows only one band since both the alleles are of the same type and are superimposed.

The following example of STR typing is to explain the above principle. Say in a given case of paternity dispute the alleged father, the mother and the child are tested for the STR locus vWA. The vWA locus — von Willebrand factor gene contains 8 alleles in the population and the alleles are numbered 13 to Though 8 alleles are present in the population for this STR locus, only two alleles can be found in an individual. In this case-example the child has received one allele [15] from the heterozygous alleged father [13, 15] and the other one allele [14] from the homozygous mother [14, 14] Figure 1.

It is evident that the bands indicating the alleles inherited by the child appear in the exact positions corresponding to the allelic ladder; and, there is no ambiguity in the allele number indicated by the bands of the ladders.

Thus based on this one STR typing, the alleged father cannot be ruled out as the biological father. However, as mentioned above, the more the number of STRs being utilized for typing, the more discriminatory this method will be for personal identification.

At present, 15 STRs are being used for typing, providing a level of discrimination as high as 1 in 30 to several hundred billion! This means that in the absence of identical twins, the probability of finding a matching DNA profile to an individual in a random population is, for example, 1 in 30 billion! Schematic representation of a hypothetical case of paternity dispute showing the STR vWA locus typing result of the alleged father, the child and the mother with allelic ladders run adjacent to the test samples.

Note that the allelic number assignment commences from the bottom and ascends by one unit increment to the top. Reading of the profile is easy and unambiguous - Alleged Father — [13,15]; Child — [14,15]; Mother — [14,14]. The alleged father cannot be ruled out as the biological father. Alec J. Tests proved that the suspect had not committed the crimes. Two other important early cases gave much impetus to the use of DNA evidence: They were, the case of Glen Dale Woodal versus the State of West Virginia in and the multiple murder trial of Timothy Wilson Spencer versus the state of Virginia in The DNA evidence in the Woodal case exonerated him while that of the Spencer case resulted in his conviction and sentencing to the death penalty.

Jose Castro was accused of murdering one Vimla Pence and her two year old daughter. He was convicted after admitting to the crime. In this case, the DNA tests conducted by Life Code Corporation did not include a specific test for human blood and also did not include blind testing protocols in the attempt to link the stain to the victims. Furthermore, the laboratory in the above case had used contaminated probes and did not provide the worksheets and other manuscripts relating to the testing.

Hence the court issued many directive guidelines regarding the test procedures and maintenance of laboratory results and reports as well as explanations for probability calculations and recording of observed defects or laboratory errors. The need to identify and document chain of custody and allowing access to data, methodology and actual results for an independent expert to review were also instructed.

In another case in , the Supreme Court of Minnesota had also refused to admit the DNA evidence analyzed by a private forensic laboratory. The court noted that the laboratory did not comply with appropriate standards and controls.

In particular the court castigated the laboratory for failure to reveal its underlying population data and testing methods.

Such secrecy precluded replication of the test. Thus, courts have denounced improper application of DNA scientific techniques to particular cases, especially when used to declare matches based on frequency estimates. Game Testing. Unistel Medical Laboratories provides the following services for game breeders:. Diversity Index All samples are catalogued, permanently stored, and remain the property of the owner of the animal. This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience.

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