The Forensics and National Security Sciences Institute (FNSSI) at Syracuse University will be awarded a $155,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice that will help scientists pin down rapists through DNA profiling.

This is the second time in two years the FNSSI has received a grant from the National Institute of Justice. Michael Marciano, senior scientist at FNSSI, along with Kevin Sweder, director of research and operations at FNSSI, compiled a proposal for the grant.

Marciano, who has an in-depth knowledge of forensic DNA analysis, said the proposal was on a subject that was “very relevant to the need of the National Institute of Justice, which reflects the needs of the greater law enforcement committee.” He added that there is no research component to this particular project.

For this project, Marciano said FNSSI will work with a DEPArray, an instrument through which fluorescent labeling is able to detect single cells. Silicon Bio Systems, a corporate partner of FNSSI, has loaned the DEPArray to the institute for a year, starting in January 2016, to use in forensically relevant cases, Marciano said.

By using the DEPArray, scientists can move what Marciano called “an electrical cage” down into a tube to collect single cells, which can then be sequenced. He added that this gives an idea of what sort of treatment is necessary.

The DEPArray will mainly be used by FNSSI for analyzing sexual assault cases, Marciano added.

In sexual assault cases, investigators must confront the loss of genetic information from the assailant. FNSSI wants to detect “single cells and use them to generate DNA profiles that can then be used to determine the relevance of their presence there,” Marciano said.

Joanna Castaneda, a graduate student studying forensic science at SU who worked on grant writing for the project, said in an email the DEPArray will be applied to DNA mixtures in order to separate the male DNA fractions from the female DNA fraction without any overcarry of the female fraction in the male fractions.

Sweder said a principle problem that forensic scientists encounter is dealing with a rape with multiple perpetrators, which means the blood samples will have different people contributing to the blood pool.

“Figuring out who the main contributor is in that DNA profile … has been a conundrum for investigators in what we call deconvolving — pulling apart the individual profile of the individuals from a group of them,” Sweder said.

The idea to isolate individual cells from a group of different types of cells resulted from using the DEPArray, Sweder added.

Therefore, Sweder said, if there was a situation with multiple perpetrators contributing to a forensic sample, the scientists could tell who contributed what in that sample.

The DEPArray provides FNSSI with increased capacities to successfully separate out individual cells from a group of cells, he added.

“The purer the starting material is, the more likely it is to get a clean DNA profile,” Sweder said.

Sweder presented the example of sperm cells in a rape case in which individual cells would be isolated from the vaginal swab. After that, the DNA profiling for each individual sperm cell could be done.

“We would know the peaks from the swab … and which particular peaks are due to which individuals,” he said.

Marciano said that since rape could affect anyone, this subject is very near and dear to a lot of people’s hearts.

“To know that you have people at your local school working to improve the sexual assault investigations should be a source of pride (in the Syracuse community),” Marciano said.

Published on October 14, 2015 at 7:39 pm

Contact Arva: ahassonj@syr.edu