DNAprint Genomics (DNAG)

[mingwan0]

DNA testing advance from New Zealand

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2712889a10,00.html

New DNA test method could speed crime solving
03 November 2003

Researchers expect soon to start producing commercial quantities of a faster DNA-testing technique that promises to reduce crime-solving delays.

Auckland University microbiologist Dr David Saul says the new and more sensitive technique, the result of 20 years work, will be marketed internationally in about six months.

He expects it will take over much criminal DNA testing worldwide because of its simplicity.

Based on an enzyme in a micro-organism found at a volcanic vent on Antarctica's Mt Erebus, the automated method involves only one step to extract DNA from a crime-scene sample of hair or other material.

The existing manual method involves 20 steps and takes far longer.

"For instance getting the DNA out of hair shafts is cut down from one to two days' work to four hours," said Dr Saul.

The elimination of so much processing preserved more of the DNA, since each step destroyed 10 percent of it, he said.

This meant the new method could surpass traditional fingerprint analysis. Samples could even be taken from beanie hats lost by offenders and from window panes against which criminals had pressed their heads while lining up a burglary.

He said the new technique also carried a lower risk of human contamination because of the fewer steps and the automation.

It was described in Saturday's New Scientist magazine and details of the research will be published in the Journal of Legal Medicine.

It was developed by Auckland and Waikato Universities and Australia's Macquarie University. Their biotech company Pacific GEM has signed a deal with the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), which is helping to develop standard operating procedures and testing kits for sale.

New Zealand crime-solving has for several years suffered delays because of work backlogs at ESR, which is contracted to the police to perform DNA analysis and other forensic investigations.

ESR forensics general manager Wayne Chisnall said last night the institute would certainly consider using the new technique, "if the validation process proves that it's robust and reliable".

"I think it will help us (reduce backlogs) but it's not the magic wand. It's part of the process."

He said the DNA-testing backlogs arose in the new area of samples from burglaries and thefts, from an increasing number of homicide and sexual offending cases and from the request to analyse many more samples from each killing or sex case.

Dr Saul said the technique, using supplies of the enzyme made at Waikato University, had been tested on real cases.

"We have got enough enzyme at the moment probably to supply the world demand for about one month. That's not good enough. We want to be able to go to a commercial partner with a lot of enzyme so that we can prove to them that we have got guaranteed supply."

He said numerous overseas forensic laboratories had called to ask about the new technique after one of the researchers outlined it to a conference.

"The whole volume of testing is mushrooming.... The industry can no longer handle the throughput. We've just got the new legislation coming through where you can sample people on much more minor crimes than before. So suddenly the volume of sampling has got higher."

The testing kits' price is yet to be set.

Some earlier information:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forensic-science/message/2792

The following article was published in the New Zealand Herald, announcing a development that will improve the sensitivity of DNA testing.

New DNA technique ready to catch crooks and cash

04.06.2002
By SIMON COLLINS

New Zealand scientists have developed a more sensitive system of DNA testing that may help to catch offenders for long-usolved crimes.

The system, developed jointly by Auckland and Waikato Universities, is being put forward as the first product of a new biotechnology company with possible American venture capital.

Waikato's head of biological sciences, Professor Roy Daniel, said the universities had patented the technique and tried it on actual criminal cases through the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR).

"We have used some of their samples to see if it works, and it does," he said.

"It's a way of getting a lot more sensitivity out of the DNA techniques.

"It may be that, for example, it will be possible to go back to old samples and get results that were not possible before."

Auckland University microbiologist David Saul said the technique could be offered for sale as soon as the results were published in forensic journals and legally validated.

"We hope to put more criminals behind bars."

The universities' new biotech company is tentatively called Pacific GEM, standing for Genes, Enzymes and Microbes.

It has arisen out of a proposed centre of research excellence called NZ GEM which made the finalists, but missed out on the final selection, when the Government allocated $60 million to five new centres of research excellence in March.

Dr Daniel, who led the research centre bid, said the proposal was being refined for a second, $58 million funding round for a further two to three centres of excellence announced in last month's Budget.

The crown research institute Landcare and Sydney's Macquarie University were also partners in the first bid and are likely to participate again. A New Zealand lawyer in San Diego, Rob Ayling, is working with the universities to raise capital for the company, which will market the group's research.

Another professor of biological sciences at Waikato, American-born Dr Roberta Farrell, is co-ordinating the commercial development using her 12 years' experience with US biotech companies.

She was chief operating officer of Sandoz Chemicals Biotech Research Corporation in Lexington, Massachussetts, from 1987 to 1996.

As well as Pacific GEM, she hopes to launch a Waikato University spinoff company using bacteria and fungi in applications such as preventing sap stain in timber.

"We are very excited because we have been looking at the potential for spinoff companies for three years. Now all of a sudden things are moving very well," she said.

"My concern for New Zealand biotech is that it's easy to have a lot of research, but my students need jobs.

"We need these biotechs to get launched and start hiring New Zealanders. That is my main reason for being involved."