Sunday, September 16, 2012 12:18:48 PM
Photofits could be constructed from DNA
Police could one day build mugshots using DNA from crime scenes, experts have claimed, rather than computerised representations.
Photo: Alamy
Police could one day build mugshots using DNA from crime scenes, experts have claimed after identifying five genes which govern facial features such as nose shape.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
10:00PM BST 13 Sep 2012
A new study [ http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002932 ] has identified how five different sections of the genetic code help guide the development of different facial characteristics in each individual.
Researchers from the Netherlands, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia used MRI scans and portrait photographs to map out different facial features common among people of European ancestry.
They then analysed the genes of 10,000 people across the five countries to look for common genetic variants which were linked to different facial traits.
Five particular genes were identified for their involvement in certain features.
Three of those had previously been linked to the risk of facial defects, including two involved in cleft lip and palate, and one related to a minor disfigurement where the top of the nose and distance between the eyes is unusually broad.
Two genes never before linked to facial development were also highlighted, including one now thought to play a role in shaping the midface and another involved in the patterning of facial tissue.
Further research into the genes which determine how we look could help police produce "mugshots" based on DNA samples collected at crime scenes, researchers suggested.
DNA traits have already enabled scientists to accurately predict traits like people's hair and eye colour, they wrote in the Public Library of Science Genetics journal.
Prof Manfred Keyser from the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who led the study, said: "These are exciting first results that mark the beginning of the genetic understanding of human facial morphology.
"Perhaps some time it will be possible to draw a phantom portrait of a person solely from his or her DNA left behind, which provides interesting applications such as in forensics. We already can predict from DNA certain eye and hair colours with quite high accuracies."
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9541867/Photofits-could-be-constructed-from-DNA.html [with comments]
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GWAS Finds Genes Associated with European Facial Features
September 14, 2012
http://www.genomeweb.com/arrays/gwas-finds-genes-associated-european-facial-features
Police could one day build mugshots using DNA from crime scenes, experts have claimed, rather than computerised representations.
Photo: Alamy
Police could one day build mugshots using DNA from crime scenes, experts have claimed after identifying five genes which govern facial features such as nose shape.
By Nick Collins, Science Correspondent
10:00PM BST 13 Sep 2012
A new study [ http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002932 ] has identified how five different sections of the genetic code help guide the development of different facial characteristics in each individual.
Researchers from the Netherlands, UK, Canada, Germany and Australia used MRI scans and portrait photographs to map out different facial features common among people of European ancestry.
They then analysed the genes of 10,000 people across the five countries to look for common genetic variants which were linked to different facial traits.
Five particular genes were identified for their involvement in certain features.
Three of those had previously been linked to the risk of facial defects, including two involved in cleft lip and palate, and one related to a minor disfigurement where the top of the nose and distance between the eyes is unusually broad.
Two genes never before linked to facial development were also highlighted, including one now thought to play a role in shaping the midface and another involved in the patterning of facial tissue.
Further research into the genes which determine how we look could help police produce "mugshots" based on DNA samples collected at crime scenes, researchers suggested.
DNA traits have already enabled scientists to accurately predict traits like people's hair and eye colour, they wrote in the Public Library of Science Genetics journal.
Prof Manfred Keyser from the Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who led the study, said: "These are exciting first results that mark the beginning of the genetic understanding of human facial morphology.
"Perhaps some time it will be possible to draw a phantom portrait of a person solely from his or her DNA left behind, which provides interesting applications such as in forensics. We already can predict from DNA certain eye and hair colours with quite high accuracies."
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9541867/Photofits-could-be-constructed-from-DNA.html [with comments]
--
GWAS Finds Genes Associated with European Facial Features
September 14, 2012
http://www.genomeweb.com/arrays/gwas-finds-genes-associated-european-facial-features
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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