Crime tech: Accelerating the slow DNA testing process
Thursday, September 29th, 2011
Criminal
justice aficionados, put this little news tidbit under your
caps. A new technology for testing DNA samples may
drastically cut the time it takes investigators to analyze it,
according to the Baltimore Sun.
The process is called “microfluidics” and the National Institute of Justice is supplying $1 million to to spur collaboration between the Baltimore Police Department, Yale University and Advanced Liquid Logic, a North Carolina company that came up with the new testing technology, the Sun reports.
It’s going to be awhile before the technology will be ready — and that’s if it works. But the potential here is to cut the expensive and time intensive process from 24 hours to one, using tiny samples one-hundredth of a raindrop in size, Advanced Liquid Logic CEO Richard West told the Sun.
Here at our Sun in Kitsap, we often receive calls and emails from frustrated residents about why criminal cases take so long to bring to a charge. One big reason is that the Washington State Patrol’s crime lab needs time to complete DNA testing.
Perhaps one day soon, that process will be much shorter.
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