Future Works

Life After iGEM

Overview

Life after iGEM is an interesting area for many projects. Some flourish into great things, some form a basis for PhD research, and some many never find the funding to go further.

The future for the forensic toolkit would be heavily based around further research and then creating a product with potential to manufacture. Robust laboratory research would be needed to prove and test the aspects of the toolkit. After this the research can be used by the respective government to aid forensic investigation or it can fall into the business world to create an enterprise.

Synthetic biology is an area that is always expanding, and with this follows huge commercial potential. In the UK the Home Office estimates that the forensic market is valued at £70-100 million (2013-14) (1). This is just one country, the worldwide market for forensic science is even more extensive.

FLuID:

This part of our protect has great potential after iGEM. If the FluID detector was succesful it would be the first spray that could find multiple bodily fluids at a crime scene, using just one type of product, instead of several. The ideas and methods behind the FluID spray can also potentially be used for other applications, for example in determining how clean hospitals are, thus creating a highly marketable product.

Chromate Biosensor:

With visual detection of residue being the only current method for finding traces on bone for forensic anthropologists, there is a need to have a biosensor that can show traces of stainless steel. This could then help piece together vital evidence that in previous cases has been lost. However the labwork we have done so far has not been successful , so a further work into this is required.

Fingerprint Ageing:

As the 'holy grail' of forensics, if our fingerprint ageing device was successful it would make a significant impact in the forensics field. This would give legal systems around the world the ability to put a time frame on a crime scene, this would make a great asset to any forensic response officer. Being new would make this unique, but it would need to be robustly tested before use.

Generic Issues

With launching a biological and forensic product there are many normal measures that need to be followed. This includes running toxicology test to see how the product interact with all environments (2) such as domestic and outside crimes scenes. This is too highlight the health hazards it poses to people, animals and the environment.

A scientific project can gain lot of bad press and misinformation can around (3), this makes it hard too sell if the public have bad views against it, so public engagement may need to be considered.

The forensic market is very competitive, the product needs to be simple to use and create results, however it needs to be reliable and have robust data to back up its claims.

Overall, we believe there is great potential for out toolkit in the wider forensics community and that it will allow for the science to be put back in to forensic sciences.

References