Forensic advancements are abundant, Utah expert says

OREM — Thanks to DNA testing, one small piece of human flesh plucked off weathered bones found in the mountains allowed criminalists to solve a years-old missing person case.

This is the real CSI, explained Jay Henry, deputy director of the Utah Bureau of Forensic Science. Except his office doesn't solve two cases an hour, minus commercial time.

"(We're) actually making a difference on a lot of cases," he said. "Those are the funnest cases. When nobody knows the answer and you figure it out — that's kind of a neat thing to be able to do."

Henry spoke Tuesday night to more than 60 people at the Orem Library as part of the library's lecture series, Research Revolution: Science and the Shaping of Modern Life, which runs every Tuesday and Thursday until Feb. 7. For more information visit the library link at www.orem.org.

Henry explained to the group — primarily high school students — just how far the DNA research has come over the past 20 to 30 years.

The new technology of identifying DNA profiles in blood, saliva or skin samples was what helped criminalists link a man and woman in the community to the bones, which turned out to be those of their father, who had been missing for several years.

Criminalists used to rely solely on ABO blood typing, which required nearly a quarter-size amount of blood to get a reading for blood type.

"If the blood stain on the floor was type O and the suspect was type A, could he have left that sample?" Henry asked.

"NO!" a student in the back piped up loudly.

"I appreciate that enthusiasm. I need people like that in my lab, (with) that enthusiasm, grit," Henry said, and the audience chuckled.

Now, he explained, blood tests can be performed with only an "itty-bitty" amount of a specimen.

Based on the DNA in blood, fingerprints, hair, skin or saliva, investigators can home in on a special four-repeated sequence of DNA that essentially gives everyone a rare blood type, through the rare DNA type.

"If someone touches the chair, cup, you can swab it now and take DNA from it," Henry said. "Our technology gets better and better and more sensitive and more sensitive as we go along."

In fact, thanks to the increasing technology, one-third of their cases using DNA end up excluding the suspect based on genetic evidence.