FORS 6604 - Forensic DNA Phenotyping: Appearance and Ancestry

Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) is an intelligence driven selection of DNA analyses and inference methods that can generate information on the externally visible characteristics and biogeographic ancestry of an individual from DNA. Its application allows investigators to narrow down a list of potential crime scene trace donors, or provide leads to cold and missing persons identification cases when all other avenues of investigation are stalled. In this course, students will cover the laboratory, computational, and statistical processes that allow the prediction of eye, hair, and skin color using multiple tools (i.e. HIrisPlex-S, Snipper-suite), as well as the approaches used to infer continental/sub-population ancestry of an unknown individual from DNA. 3 credits.