Large-scale comparative genotyping and kinship analysis: evolution in its use for human identification in mass fatality incidents and missing persons databasing

Abstract

The discovery of mass graves and the advent of the World Trade Center tragedy have underscored the necessity to better harness the information content of large DNA typing data sets with bioinformatic tools. This presentation will review the evolution of a bioinformatic tool originally created to assist with the identification of the victims of the Swissair Air Disaster in 1998. This tool was re-built in 2001 to handle the much more demanding complexities of the WTC tragedy. This second generation included the capability to process very large STR and SNP data sets, to collapse remains data, to build composite profiles from overlapping partial remains profiles, to search for potential kinship associations on a purely genetic basis, to verify the consistency of complete family pedigrees, and to perform likelihood ratio calculations. The next generation of this tool is under construction as a stand-alone application under a new database architecture. It will provide functionalities to meet the needs of very large mass fatality incidents (MFIs), and of missing persons databasing initiatives. The considerable benefits of integrated, systematic “data mining” approaches will be discussed.