A man allows police to take a DNA sample. Source: AFP

DNA technology now plays a key role in more than half of arrests and reports from crime scenes, as the number of people on the database grows.

Last financial year, DNA from crime scenes contributed to an arrest or a report in 52per cent of cases, up from 48per cent the previous year, reflecting an improvement in forensic science and crime scene investigation practices.

The South Australian Police annual report tabled in Parliament yesterday showed 97,396 suspects or offenders had samples entered on the DNA database, up from 84,629 in 2010-11.

While scientific work increasingly helps solve crimes, so does intelligence work.

During 2011-12 the Crime Gangs Task Force - which deals with organised crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs - arrested or reported 89 motorcycle gang members and 92 associates; seized 1175g of amphetamine, 130 cannabis plants, 5319g of cannabis, 165 ecstasy pills, 927 street deals of other illicit drugs; $139,000 in cash, 29 firearms and issued 42 barring orders.

Police Commissioner Gary Burns said victim-reported crime continued to drop, falling 5.6per cent in the past financial year (to 125,879 incidents) and 40.5per cent since 2000-01.

Other highlights in the report include:

18,534 reports received by Bank SA Crime Stoppers, resulting in 2066 crimes solved, 1166 suspects apprehended and $261,645 worth of property and cash recovered;

563,594 driver screening tests conducted, including 42,312 drivers tested for drug driving, 7779 cars impounded or clamped for hoon driving (compared to 7303 in 2010-11).

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DNA clues catch more criminals

AUSTRALIA'S sheep producers are queuing up to adopt new DNA technology, with the latest Sheep Genomics Pilot Project fully subscribed.

The DNA testing program, conducted by the Co-operative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation (Sheep CRC), was booked out within days of its opening in August.

The Genomics Pilot Project offers three DNA testing programs: a SNP test for parentage at $17/test; a SNP test for Merino poll/horn for $17/test; and the 50k SNP test for prediction of genomic breeding values for sires at a cost of $50/test. Merinos tested for parentage, or with the 50k SNP, are receiving the poll test results at no additional cost.

The 1500 genotyping tests available as part of Pilot Project III have been fully subscribed, and a further 1500 tests allocated for commercial scale trials has also been over-subscribed, Sheep CRC chief executive James Rowe said.

With the use of DNA analysis and genomic breeding values being a very new technology, R&D is occurring in parallel with the Genomics Pilot Projects in order to define the most effective use of the new technologies in practical breeding programs.

"For this reason, the CRCs genetics research team will be working closely with a group of nine commercial-scale breeders who have submitted expressions of interest.

This is a resounding vote of confidence in the commercial value of genomics technology for sheep breeding programs.

The Sheep CRC has conducted a Genomics Pilot Project yearly since 2010, with the number of rams tested each year increasing dramatically, from approximately 450 rams in 2010, to 860 rams in 2011 and now 3000 rams in 2012.

This years project will build on the earlier trials, which provided genomic predictions for new traits including dressing percentage and lean meat yield, together with traits for meat eating quality such as intramuscular fat and shear force that are difficult and expensive to measure.

It is expected that the accuracy levels of research breeding values (RBVs) and Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) will further improve as a result of the additional data collected during the Genomics Pilot Project and through the Information Nucleus program.

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Producers embrace sheep DNA testing

A retrial is expected in a San Francisco cold case murder in which DNA evidence failed to lead to a conviction Tuesday.

Just three of the 12 jurors believed there was enough evidence even after matching DNA samples to convict 48-year-old William Payne of strangling to death 41-year-old Nikolaus Crumbley while raping him in a car in John McLaren Park on Nov. 16, 1983.

On Wednesday, Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof, who represents Payne, said the hung jury proves that despite what we see on television, the presence of DNA does not prove a person is guilty of a crime.

But prosecutors appear determined to prove otherwise. Motions in Paynes retrial begin today, the Public Defenders Office said, with opening arguments scheduled for Oct. 22.

DNA evidence and independent corroborating testimony linked the defendant to the brutal rape and murder of Mr. Crumbely, District Attorney George Gascn said following Tuesdays outcome.

Payne was 19 years old when Crumbleys body was found facedown at the intersection of John Shelley Drive and Mansell Street. Prosecutors said Crumbleys pants and underwear were pulled down to his ankles.

Prosecutors believe Payne killed Crumbley while the two were having sex in Crumbleys rental car, which was later found in Oaklands Lake Merritt.

Three years ago, cold case investigators tied DNA found in Crumbleys rectum to Payne, whose DNA had been entered in a criminal database after he assaulted a woman in 1984.

In January, Payne was charged with first-degree murder during the course of sodomy.

But the DNA evidence wasnt enough to convince nine jurors of Paynes guilt.

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DNA evidence fails to convince jury of man’s guilt in 1983 killing

LEXINGTON, Mass. & CORALVILLE, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

RainDance Technologies, Inc., the Digital Biology Company, and Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) Inc., the world leader in oligonucleotide synthesis, today announced a collaboration focused on consumables specifically tailored to perform the fast-growing application of digital PCR. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will work together on the development of reagents compatible with the RainDrop Digital PCR System. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The RainDrop Digital PCR System is a breakthrough research platform that is transforming the performance of molecular assays by enabling digital answers across a number of important applications including low-frequency tumor allele detection, gene expression, copy number variation, and SNP measurement. Built using RainDances proven RainStorm picodroplet technology, the RainDrop System generates up to 10 million picoliter-sized droplets per sample. Since each droplet encapsulates no more than a single molecule, researchers can quickly determine the absolute number of droplets containing specific target DNA and compare that to the number of droplets with background, wild-type DNA.

We have achieved a new gold standard in sensitivity, quantitation and multiplexing through enhancements in every aspect of system and reagent refinement, said Rena McClory, Ph.D., Marketing Director for Digital PCR at RainDance Technologies. We are pleased to be working with market leaders such as IDT on the development and broad availability of best-in-class reagents in support of our new RainDrop Digital PCR System.

IDT is a leader in manufacturing and developing custom oligonucleotideproductsfor use in the research and diagnostic life science markets.This includesdesign and synthesis ofdual-labeled probes for gene expression and genotyping as part of the PrimeTime qPCR product family. Founded by Dr. Joseph Walder in 1987, IDTs development has been guided by an uncompromising approach to quality, a belief in the value of good service, and a determination to minimize consumer costs.

We are pleased to be working with RainDance in supporting scientists who are seeking to apply the powerful attributes of digital PCR to their research projects, said Stephen Gunstream, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at IDT. Digital PCR is redefining the science of directly quantifying and amplifying nucleic acids and will open the doors to an exciting era of new discoveries.

For more information about the RainDrop Digital PCR System, please visit http://www.RainDanceTech.com.

About RainDance Technologies

RainDance Technologies, the Digital Biology Company, is pioneering the use of high-throughput picodroplet-based analysis in human health and life science research. The company's core RainStorm technology generates millions of discrete droplets that can encapsulate a single molecule, cell or reaction and be digitally analyzed and sorted one at a time. The power, precision and simplicity of picodroplets enable researchers to answer complex questions with unprecedented sensitivity and quantitation. The complete RainDance solution includes automated instrumentation, customizable bioinformatics and high-value consumables and reagents for applications including targeted next-generation DNA sequencing, methylation, digital PCR. Based in Lexington, Massachusetts, the company supports scientists around the world through its international sales and support operations and a global network of distributors and service providers. For more information, please visitwww.RainDanceTech.com.

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostics procedures.

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RainDance Technologies and Integrated DNA Technologies to Develop Reagents and Consumables for Digital PCR

Using tools he often had made himself, Leonard Lerman took great care in making precise measurements during experiments he performed to further the understanding of DNA.

A simple way to state it is that he was a deeply quantitative man, said Tom Maniatis, chairman of the biochemistry and molecular biophysics department at Columbia University, who had worked with Dr. Lerman as a graduate student at Vanderbilt University.

Discoveries he made about what can unwind the strands of DNA, and other research throughout his career, helped Dr. Lerman become a key figure in the field of molecular biology.

He was both a deep and brilliant man, and also a clever man, in the sense that he always had great ideas and techniques, Maniatis said.

Dr. Lerman, formerly a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died Sept. 19 in his Cambridge home of a chronic neurological disease. He was 87.

He did lots of things that served for the increased understanding of the structure of DNA and the things that interacted with DNA, said Maurice Fox, a professor emeritus of molecular biology at MIT.

Dr. Lerman, Maniatis said, saw the world through mathematics and could use mathematical and physical properties of molecules to predict what would occur.

As a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Lerman worked with Linus Pauling, who in 1954 was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry and has often been referred to as one of the founders of molecular biology.

Dr. Lerman set out to prove his hunch that antibodies have two binding sites to bond with antigens, which are any foreign substances that prompt an immune response. After achieving that goal, he graduated from Cal Tech with a doctorate in chemistry in 1950 and went on to join the faculty of the University of Colorado.

The 1950s were an active time for DNA research. Dr. Lerman was determined to find out more about chemicals that attach to DNA strands and make them unwind, often causing mutations. The way certain chemicals attach to the strands is called intercalation, and it occurs between adjacent base pairs in double-stranded DNA.

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Leonard Lerman, 87; senior lecturer at MIT researched DNA

Up until now, the money Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN) , Roche, Life Technologies (Nasdaq: LIFE) , and Pacific Biosciences of California (Nasdaq: PACB) have made selling DNA sequencers has come from research labs. Academics need DNA sequencers to do basic research to understand how genetic variation affects biologic processes.

That basic research has translated into the clinic at an alarming rate, producing the next generation of DNA sequencing demand.

You can see it in the acquisitions Roche's bid for Illumina appeared to be mostly driven by bringing sequencing to the clinic. Roche has a strong hold in diagnostic testing, and Illumina's sequencing technology is superior to Roche's. But Roche played hardball and didn't want to overpay for the technology.

Last month, Illumina decided it could fill some of the gap on its own, purchasing BlueGenome, a leader in cytogenetics. The company sells tests that look at the DNA to identify genetic abnormalities that lead to cancer and other issues. Currently, those abnormalities are identified by binding probes to the DNA to identify duplications and fusion of chromosomes, but we're not too far off from where cancer patients just routinely get their DNA sequenced to identify the abnormalities.

Blue Genome also has a test to look for abnormalities before in vitro fertilization. Sequencing might be harder there, because of less DNA, but these issues are often overcome eventually.

It sure looks to me like Illumina bought BlueGenome more for its ability to sell and run the clinical test than for the test themselves, which may be obsolete in a few years given the rapid decrease in the cost of sequencing. We will get to the point where running individual tests like Sequenom's (Nasdaq: SQNM) MaterniT21 PLUS will be silly because the entire genome can be analyzed for the same cost.

Diagnosing Earlier this month, Life Technologies hooked up with CollabRx (Nasdaq: CLRX) to use the company's interpretive analytics to help develop tests for cancer diagnostics. CollabRx combines a patient's data from multiple sources to help the doctor develop a treatment plan. The genotype of a tumor tells you a lot about what drugs might be able to kill the tumor, but the genetic variation still needs to be taken in context with other pieces of information.

Getting the sequence and knowing what to do with it are two different things. One startup sequencing company, Knome, has begun selling a $125,000 supercomputer, so hospitals can analyze patients' DNA sequences directly. Having the process in-house might speed up diagnosis, but the appeal seems to also be about avoiding confidentiality issues for the patients when the data is shared externally. Either way, the fact that hospitals are buying the station is a sign that they see a future in using patients DNA sequences when diagnosing patients.

On the cusp (still) We've been on the verge of pushing genomics into diagnostics for years. Illumina added a new division for diagnostics back in 2008. Four years later, we're further along, but we're still a ways away from where DNA sequencing is a mainstream test done by most doctors.

The limiting factor is a combination of usefulness and cost, both of which are headed in the right direction. We're learning more about how genetic variations affect patients' physiologies. And the discoveries are accelerated as more people get their genomes sequenced.

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The Future of DNA Sequencing Isn't in the Lab

DENVER - DNA evidence will almost certainly play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation into the murder of Jessica Ridgeway, but a noted DNA expert cautions it can also potentially lead investigators down a rabbit hole.

Take the backpack that was found shortly after Jessica Ridgeway was reported missing as an example. It was found in a neighborhood in Superior.

"What if some kid sneezed on [Jessica's] backpack during recess [at her school]? Then we're focusing all of our efforts on this, and when we don't find that person we then think we haven't found the killer," Dr. Elizabeth Johnson told 9News from her California home on Monday.

Dr. Johnson has more than 20 years of experience working in the field of DNA technology. She was called by the defense to testify during the Kobe Bryant case in Colorado. She currently works in private forensic consultation.

"I think the biggest misconception about DNA technology is that it is infallible and that there are never mistakes made," she said. "Just because you someone's DNA on an object doesn't make them guilty of a criminal act."

Of course, she said, the presence of particular bodily fluids can also be indicative of a criminal act, and thus lead investigators closer to a killer. But she cautions that CSI-like television shows have raised the expectations of many people in inappropriate ways.

Dr. Andrew Bonham is a professor at Metropolitan State University and says he still believes DNA will help in the Ridgeway murder investigation.

"I am almost 100 percent convinced," the molecular biology expert said. "That (the killer) is going to leave traces of DNA behind and that investigators are going to find those traces."

He said that current technology allows investigators to collect even seemingly miniscule portions of bodily fluids in an effort to identify critical DNA markers.

"We're now talking about almost less than you can perceive," he said.

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DNA will play pivotal role in Ridgeway case