Professor Sue Black, OBE FRSE, is a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology as well as the director of CAHID (Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at University of Dundee). We met with Sue early on to discuss the basis of our project, the forensic toolkit. She was very supportive and offered to help us in any way she could. She stated that “there is science and then there is forensics”. Her view is that forensics is only the communication of science in the courtroom to a particular end and forensics needs a more scientific background. Over the years many forms of evidence such as hair, fibre and even DNA analysis have been discredited or discarded. A rigorous and robust technique, especially dating of evidence, would strengthen the basis of forensics. This highlighted the lack of scientific rigour within the field and encouraged us to do our best to meet this real need for techniques that can stand up to peer review.

One of our very first meetings was with Professor Niamh Nic Daeid who works at CAHID. She was very helpful and extremely enthusiastic about our project. And gave us some background information on current techniques used in the field and their limitations. One thing we picked up on was that the current methods for body fluid detection are not sensitive enough to identify low concentrations of blood for example. And some can also react positively with bleach. It can also be a very slow process at the crime scene, with different ‘crime lights’, which are essentially fancy torches, being used one at a time on all surfaces to try and identify any body fluid present. So our idea is to create an all in one solution which can detect different body fluids.

This was our very first opportunity to pitch our project idea, which we delivered to the other two Scottish iGEM teams. It was great to see what the other teams were doing and take part in some fun team building activities!

Kenny Laing works for the Scottish Police Services Authority in Forensic Services where he is team manager overseeing four Mark Enhancement laboratories. He highlighted was that it is not possible to determine how long a fingerprint has been left at the crime scene and explained to us why fingerprint ageing is such a challenge, namely due to the sheer amount of factors which can affect fingerprint composition both between individuals and within the same individual at different times of the day. He also stressed how incredibly useful a technique with that capability would be in an investigation, to help narrow down suspects to only those present at the scene at the time of the crime. We wanted to try and tackle this by first finding a component integral to all fingerprints that can be targeted to estimate its age using mathematical modelling techniques, and then create a detector for that component.

The team had a fantastic weekend at the wonderful Mr Drew’s Photography. We donned our detective gear and got right into character for the occasion!

Award-winning, crime author Stuart MacBride was kind enough to spare some of his time before receiving his honorary degree at the University of Dundee. He was able to give us an exciting insight into the workings of the criminal mind and his intriguing writing process but also explained how important it is to manage public expectations of Forensic Science.

Mark Stewart QC and Brian McConnachie QC both operate in the High Court of Justice and James Laverty is a solicitor and module organiser of Criminal Procedure and Advocacy Diploma in Legal Practice at the University of Dundee. All three gentlemen unanimously agreed that each element of our toolkit would be of most value being used in an investigative sense. This showed that although they may not necessarily be used for providing evidence that would be presented in a court of law, there is real potential for our devices to play key roles in the earlier stages of investigations. They suggested our devices would be very useful to the police and crime scene investigators in narrowing down suspects. This is key in cases as it will help the police allocate their resources and start questioning suspects sooner. This meeting was great for shaping our project, as it shows where our ‘forensic toolkit’ would be most useful and applicable.

We were fortunate enough to speak with a Scenes of Crime Officer who has experience working in a variety of environments. He was very enthusiastic about our BioSpray idea, saying that an all in one tool such as ours would markedly improve the efficiency of crime scene investigation, since it would significantly reduce the time needed to perform a thorough examination as well as the potential for contamination. The current technique used is ‘Crime-lite’ which is a set of different torches that need to be taken in and used at the crime scene one at a time. This means that there is more chance of introducing contamination to the scene. Our FluID spray is an all-in-one solution so the crime scene would only needed to be entered once.

We also met with Dr Lucina Hackman who is a forensic anthropologist at CAHID and her main focus is on the analysis of skeletal and dismembered remains. She explained to us that most cut marks on bone are analysed visually by looking at the different striations left behind by different tools. So we discussed with her our idea of a chromate detector to help detect traces of stainless steel left on bone, for example and how it could best be used. She suggested that we broaden our view on the application of the chromate sensor as it could also be used to find metal fragments from blunt force trauma injuries.

We met with Rory Downham, a chemist from the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology (CAST). He carries out work on fingermark detection and drug detection methods, including in-house original research and collaboration with academic and industrial partners.

SELEX ES is a company which aids in the development of a range of products including biological sensors. The representative that we met mainly works with new technologies and taking them to market. He explained to us that in order for our toolkit to be successful, all possibilities for error must be investigated and tested, so that the product is consistent and rigorously tested. We would also need to market the final product in a way that meets everybody’s needs, for example the police/scenes of crime officers will want an easy to apply and use technique. While forensic scientists will be more concerned with whether the method will damage or contaminate evidence as well as its accuracy and robustness. He also suggested we look into whether our FluID spray can be adapted to be used for anything else. Because it is able to detect body fluid, it may also be useful in hospitals and/or restaurants to assess cleanliness.

The University of Dundee released a press article about our project. A few members of the team were interviewed and the photo of the meeting with crime author Stuart MacBride was used. Click here to read the article.

Manuel and Tracy, one of our supervisors, were interviewed by Radio Scotland. Click on the play button to hear the questions asked about our project.

We were filmed and interviewed by Scottish Television (STV) News, and the clip above was shown on local television. Hannah, from the dry team, demonstrated her bone incision experiment techniques and described the project as a whole. Tracy Palmer, one of our supervisors, was also interviewed. Click on play to watch the short video clip.