We have all seen the episode of CSI: or Inspector Morse, where the criminal wipes away his finger prints in the hope that he will not be caught. They always miss that stray hair or broken fingernail though and still get caught. It is because of DNA fingerprinting that people can be identified by a stray particle.

Every part of the human body is a sequence of chemicals and each person has their own individual stamp running through them. This is called their DNA Fingerprint. It is the DNA that makes every person different, and it is as individual as a normal fingerprint or a tigers stripes.

It is this individuality that makes DNA fingerprinting so important not only in crime fighting but in family relationship analysis.

DNA fingerprinting has been around since the mid 1980s, when it was invented by Sir Alec Jefferys. It was immediately picked up by the crime fighting world as a piece of DNA from a hair will match the DNA from the same person’s blood or skin. It is the DNA fingerprint that matches to the person, not the piece of evidence. If you can imagine the potential for leaving behind DNA at a crime scene, the list is endless, blood, sweat, semen, skin, hair and nails, most of which could be left behind without even noticing. It is a wonder that criminals even bother now a days.

It is because of DNA fingerprinting that many old cold crimes have been reopened and solved. For example DNA fingerprinting has helped the police solve a 1982 murder of Laurie Cunningham after new DNA evidence came to light.

The other use for DNA fingerprinting is in the form of paternity testing. It is an unfortunate reality that there are babies who get born without knowing who their dad is. In this case, DNA samples are taken from the mother and the two potential fathers. The DNA is broken down into readable segments and the DNA fingerprint is read and matched. Through DNA fingerprinting it is possible to match up the paternal father with an accuracy of 99.9% therefore giving the child the knowledge of their paternal family.