A NEW method of forensic DNA analysis has created an unexpected headache for researchers studying the genetic roots of disease. To protect the privacy of research volunteers, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has abruptly pulled data off the web.
David Craig of the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, and his team have devised statistical algorithms which could help police to identify individual DNA profiles from a mixture comprising samples from more than 1000 people. While conventional forensic genetic markers can be difficult to identify in samples containing several people’s DNA, Craig’s algorithms analyse up to 50,000…
