Proceedings of the 25th International ISFG Congress

Abstract

The 25th Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics was celebrated in Melbourne. The ‘most liveable city’ played host to the congress with Professor Adrian Linacre from Flinders University as the congress President and Dr Linzi Wilson-Wilde as the Vice President. The following proceedings have been reviewed and accepted for publication as 2 page extended abstracts to allow the presenters of the accepted abstracts to discuss their findings in more detail. This supplementary edition has been edited by Adrian Linacre and Professor Niels Morling, Vice President of the ISFG, Director and Chairman of the Department of Forensic Medicine Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We appreciate that it is difficult to keep to the two page limit, but due to the large number of worthy submissions it was necessary to keep to a limit. Further, it is not possible to review the submissions in the same way as editions of FSI: Genetics.The 3 day congress, from the 4 to 6 September, included 57 oral presentations and 312 posters. In addition there were six invited talks that set the themes for the sessions. These were new technologies, body fluid typing, lineage markers, wildlife forensic science, interpretation of complex mixtures and SNP testing for both ancestry and phenotypic purposes. The highlight of the opening ceremony was a presentation from Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys. Many will have not heard Alec Jeffreys speak before, but he always has a message worth listening to. Niels Morling provided light relief in homage to the 25th congress with a history of the ISFG.Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen started the congress on Wednesday giving a fascinating overview of ancient DNA methods and an in-sight into how they can be applied to current or future forensic practice. The theme of that morning was novel technologies with an emphasis on mass parallel sequencing technologies. The afternoon started with SallyAnn Harbison discussing body fluid typing including how transcription of RNA can be used and implemented into casework; this set the theme for the afternoon. Chris Tyler-Smith from the Welcome Trust gave an invited talk on the world of Y chromosome DNA testing and the extensive research on this small chromosome. The presentation highlighted not only the forensic aspects of markers on the Y chromosome by using rapidly mutating parts of the chromosome but also how it can be used in evolutionary studies. Rebecca Johnson started the afternoon session by highlighting the scale of wildlife crime and how forensic DNA typing can be used to investigate a wide range of species encountered commonly in this largely neglected field. Friday saw a session on DNA interpretation led by John Buckleton followed by a variety of talks on this theme indicating its importance. Jeremy Austin gave the last plenary talk and considered how novel techniques could be used for the identification of missing persons.The ISFG committee awarded the prize for the best oral presentation to Susan Walsh from the Erasmus University (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) for her talk on “Predicting skin color from DNA using a model based approach”. Sarah Leake, from the University of Lausanne, was awarded the best poster prize for “Human identification through analysis of the salivary microbiome”. A prize was awarded to the best oral presentation by a student (Electra Williams of ESR, New Zealand) and the best poster by a student (Nano Nagle of La Trobe University, Australia).The major themes of the congress were echoed in the nine workshops that spanned the congress. For the first time there were two concurrent streams in DNA Interpretation; one assumed only basic knowledge and aimed at the new career members of the forensic community with an advanced DNA Interpretation workshop in parallel. Both workshops lasted two days. Concurrent on the Monday was a full day workshop on DVI for Biologists. Also on a packed Monday was a workshop on identification of Body Fluids and one on Genomic Technologies. Tuesday saw Ancestry Testing along with a workshop on Wildlife Forensic Science. Tuesday also witnessed the largest attendance for a workshop (111) to hear about Phenotypic Markers. These eight workshops, with up to three concurrent topics, were delivered by the leads in their field attracting a total of 509 attendees. A further 62 attended a post-congress workshop on Lineage Markers. Within a packed program was a further, and popular, workshop on writing and reviewing scientific papers given by John Butler and sponsored by Elsevier. The number of workshops was many more than normal for an ISFG. The commitment to attend a conference in Australia from far afield could be justified if there was an added dimension other than the 3 day congress. The variety of workshops meant that many could attend more than one resulting in a broader educational experience.The truly international dimension of the society is demonstrated by representatives from 50 countries attending the congress. The proceedings that follow are also drawn from all around the world. The large number of posters meant that it was easier to divide them into different themes; population genetics, DNA databases, mitochondrial markers, Y chromosome markers, X STRs (for the first time), ancestrally informative markers, SNPs, new technologies, phenotypic typing, body fluid testing, evaluation of DNA, DNA typing in casework, non-human DNA, medical matters, and validation studies. Clearly some abstracts fitted more than one of the 15 themes but this illustrates the diversity of research within forensic genetics. This diversity is demonstrated in the following proceedings.A congress could not happen without the help, labor and commitment of a few volunteers. These are listed in the table to ensure we are inclusive.Tabled 1Local organising committeeLocal scientific committeeScientific committeeAdrian LinacreAdrian LinacreAdrian LinacreLinzi Wilson-WildeLinzi Wilson-WildeMecki PrinzJohn SchefferRuna DanielNiels MorlingRoland van OorschotPeter SchneiderSallyAnn HarbisonWolfgang MayerJohn BuckletonLeonor GusmãoWalther Parson Open table in a new tab We hope that the following proceedings will be a valuable resource. They will be freely accessible through the ISFG website (www.isfg.org) and http://www.fsigeneticssup.com. The 25th Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics was celebrated in Melbourne. The ‘most liveable city’ played host to the congress with Professor Adrian Linacre from Flinders University as the congress President and Dr Linzi Wilson-Wilde as the Vice President. The following proceedings have been reviewed and accepted for publication as 2 page extended abstracts to allow the presenters of the accepted abstracts to discuss their findings in more detail. This supplementary edition has been edited by Adrian Linacre and Professor Niels Morling, Vice President of the ISFG, Director and Chairman of the Department of Forensic Medicine Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. We appreciate that it is difficult to keep to the two page limit, but due to the large number of worthy submissions it was necessary to keep to a limit. Further, it is not possible to review the submissions in the same way as editions of FSI: Genetics. The 3 day congress, from the 4 to 6 September, included 57 oral presentations and 312 posters. In addition there were six invited talks that set the themes for the sessions. These were new technologies, body fluid typing, lineage markers, wildlife forensic science, interpretation of complex mixtures and SNP testing for both ancestry and phenotypic purposes. The highlight of the opening ceremony was a presentation from Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys. Many will have not heard Alec Jeffreys speak before, but he always has a message worth listening to. Niels Morling provided light relief in homage to the 25th congress with a history of the ISFG. Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen started the congress on Wednesday giving a fascinating overview of ancient DNA methods and an in-sight into how they can be applied to current or future forensic practice. The theme of that morning was novel technologies with an emphasis on mass parallel sequencing technologies. The afternoon started with SallyAnn Harbison discussing body fluid typing including how transcription of RNA can be used and implemented into casework; this set the theme for the afternoon. Chris Tyler-Smith from the Welcome Trust gave an invited talk on the world of Y chromosome DNA testing and the extensive research on this small chromosome. The presentation highlighted not only the forensic aspects of markers on the Y chromosome by using rapidly mutating parts of the chromosome but also how it can be used in evolutionary studies. Rebecca Johnson started the afternoon session by highlighting the scale of wildlife crime and how forensic DNA typing can be used to investigate a wide range of species encountered commonly in this largely neglected field. Friday saw a session on DNA interpretation led by John Buckleton followed by a variety of talks on this theme indicating its importance. Jeremy Austin gave the last plenary talk and considered how novel techniques could be used for the identification of missing persons. The ISFG committee awarded the prize for the best oral presentation to Susan Walsh from the Erasmus University (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) for her talk on “Predicting skin color from DNA using a model based approach”. Sarah Leake, from the University of Lausanne, was awarded the best poster prize for “Human identification through analysis of the salivary microbiome”. A prize was awarded to the best oral presentation by a student (Electra Williams of ESR, New Zealand) and the best poster by a student (Nano Nagle of La Trobe University, Australia). The major themes of the congress were echoed in the nine workshops that spanned the congress. For the first time there were two concurrent streams in DNA Interpretation; one assumed only basic knowledge and aimed at the new career members of the forensic community with an advanced DNA Interpretation workshop in parallel. Both workshops lasted two days. Concurrent on the Monday was a full day workshop on DVI for Biologists. Also on a packed Monday was a workshop on identification of Body Fluids and one on Genomic Technologies. Tuesday saw Ancestry Testing along with a workshop on Wildlife Forensic Science. Tuesday also witnessed the largest attendance for a workshop (111) to hear about Phenotypic Markers. These eight workshops, with up to three concurrent topics, were delivered by the leads in their field attracting a total of 509 attendees. A further 62 attended a post-congress workshop on Lineage Markers. Within a packed program was a further, and popular, workshop on writing and reviewing scientific papers given by John Butler and sponsored by Elsevier. The number of workshops was many more than normal for an ISFG. The commitment to attend a conference in Australia from far afield could be justified if there was an added dimension other than the 3 day congress. The variety of workshops meant that many could attend more than one resulting in a broader educational experience. The truly international dimension of the society is demonstrated by representatives from 50 countries attending the congress. The proceedings that follow are also drawn from all around the world. The large number of posters meant that it was easier to divide them into different themes; population genetics, DNA databases, mitochondrial markers, Y chromosome markers, X STRs (for the first time), ancestrally informative markers, SNPs, new technologies, phenotypic typing, body fluid testing, evaluation of DNA, DNA typing in casework, non-human DNA, medical matters, and validation studies. Clearly some abstracts fitted more than one of the 15 themes but this illustrates the diversity of research within forensic genetics. This diversity is demonstrated in the following proceedings. A congress could not happen without the help, labor and commitment of a few volunteers. These are listed in the table to ensure we are inclusive. We hope that the following proceedings will be a valuable resource. They will be freely accessible through the ISFG website (www.isfg.org) and http://www.fsigeneticssup.com.