New York, August 18: Israeli scientists have successfully fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA, potentially undercutting what has been considered key evidence leading to conviction or exoneration in crime cases.
The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases, The New York Times reported.
They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.
“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.
–PTI