Furthering the application of human identification techniques using hair

Human hair is invaluable to forensic investigations because it is one of the few biological specimen types that persist for long periods of time. However, hair contains minimal intact nuclear DNA, leading researchers to search for alternate identification methods using hair. Previous research led to a new protein-based identification technique, providing a way to identify humans using the protein in hair, bones, teeth, and shed skin cells. Since the development of this technique, researchers have continued looking at scientific questions relevant for practical forensic use of the technique.

One such question is whether hairs from different areas of the body provide the same identification results, as hair origin is often not known from hair recovered for forensic investigations. Researchers from Lawrence Livermore and Michigan State University explored this question by analyzing one-inch hair samples from different body locations to determine if the same genetically variant peptides (GVPs) markers—the peptides containing amino acid polymorphisms that reflect genetic information—could be identified. The results demonstrated that identification of individuals using hair proteins was independent of the body location from which the hair originated. In addition, the team defined criteria for marker selection and identified robust GVP markers for protein-based human identification, furthering the potential application of the technique in forensic investigations.

This research received Laboratory Directed Research and Development support (16-SI-002).

[F. Chu, K.E. Mason, D.S. Anex, A.D. Jones, and B.R. Hart, Hair Proteome Variation at Different Body Locations on Genetically Variant Peptide Detection for Protein-Based Human Identification, Scientific Reports 9, 7641 (2019), doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-44007-7.]