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I See Your DNA With IT! One of the most promising areas in science is that of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA is a self-replicating, microscopic structure that holds the recipe for creating proteins in our cells. Understanding DNA has opened new worlds in genealogy, biology, medicine, and forensics. Human DNA looks like a “ladder” with an estimated three billion base pairs making up the “rungs”. Three billion base pairs in every cell! That is a lot. If we were to count one pair per second, it would take a generously long lifespan to complete the task (ninety-five years). And that is counting them just once. How much longer to understand them or compare them? OK, what does DNA have to do with information technology (IT)? Without IT, the meaning and value of our DNA may have remained forever hidden. The sheer number of base pairs and myriad of permutations is impossible to comprehend in a brain designed to process about eight pieces of information at a time. In an earlier article we discussed fingerprinting and IT. Like fingerprinting, DNA was discovered long before we had the technology to make use of it. Discovered in 1869 (by Swiss researcher Friedrich Miescher), it was not useful for many, many decades. The challenge of understanding DNA is exponentially more difficult than fingerprints. There are 150 individual ridge characteristics on a fingerprint compared to 3,000,000,000 base pairs on a single DNA strand. Only with IT could that much data be manipulated, understood, and compared. We can now sequence DNA in as little as four hours.
No suspect could mean the case goes “cold”. Times have changed. Enter the wide adoption of DNA based ancestry services. These extremely large databases of DNA samples are quickly compared to identify your “origins”. Millions of people have submitted their DNA. The AncestryDNA database alone has over 20 million samples. Law enforcement now uses these databases to find matches for unknown suspects. Failing an exact match, it can narrow the search to a family if the suspect's cousin got their DNA profiled. Even when human DNA cannot be used, our mitochondria’s DNA can. Mitochondria, the “powerhouse” of our cells, is an independent creature with its own DNA. As mitochondria is passed directly from mother to child in the egg, it can be used to cleanly trace the mother’s lineage. Mitochondrial DNA can be found in “dead” hair where there is no human DNA. All living things have DNA, and each individual organism’s DNA is unique. So, DNA from plants and bacteria can also be used to solve crime. In one investigation, a murder dumped a body in the forest and, as he drove away, seeds from a tree fell into the bed of his truck. Forensics matched the seeds in his truck to a specific tree at the site of the murder. In another case, a murder drowned someone in a pond. Forensics tied the DNA of microscopic pond organisms on a suspect’s shoes and car rug to the pond water in that specific pond, again, tying the suspect to the crime scene. Appreciate the wonders of DNA.
I would also suggest that our understanding of DNA was greatly enhanced by our understanding of software coding. While DNA is not a software code [more of a database], it served as a handy analogy for comprehension. Like many disciplines in science, forensics is now IT based. With IT we can read and compare DNA. We can tie someone to a crime scene with microscopic amounts of DNA left at the site. Originally, the challenge was that you needed to have a suspect’s DNA for comparison. get IT done
And Think About IT!
Tony Keefe, COO, Entre Computer Services www.entrecs.com MAY 2022 The ROCHESTER ENGINEER | 13
