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Forensic laboratories have long struggled to find the best practice for obtaining sufficient DNA from bone specimens. Any new protocol must overcome the extraction efficiency hurdle while also limiting the presence of PCR inhibitors, thus permitting the generation of utilizable STR profiles from this challenging medium. This blog post elaborates on a presentation by InnoGenomics at the 2022 American Academy of Forensic Science meeting, where we offered just such a solution for DNA extraction from bone.

Ten years ago, a nonprofit organization called Hope Exists After Rape Trauma (or H-E-A-R-T) began offering retreats for survivors. These events gave victims a space to talk with other victims, share experiences, and heal from sexual assault and abuse. Many survivors find this opportunity for peer-to-peer support to be more effective than working one-on-one with a professional counselor. InnoGenomics would like to celebrate this anniversary of hope and recovery, as well as congratulate H-E-A-R-T on the impact of their broader programming!

We are thrilled to announce the completion of the validation of our SpermX methodology. With data under review for publication, we hope our product will pave the way for swifter justice for victims of sexual assault.

Many forensic DNA labs only process hairs with an intact root present, since it’s challenging to isolate DNA from rootless hair shafts. InnoGenomics is proud to share that, together, our extraction and purification system combined with a small amplicon DNA typing system can help solve this problem. By using the InnoXtract and InnoTyper 21 (IT21) kits together, isolation and typing of nuclear DNA from rootless hair shafts can become achievable. And we have an exciting announcement coming soon for degraded bone samples.

At InnoGenomics, our advice for forensic labs tends to follow a theme: make key investments in your staff and your lab, because outsourcing casework is not a long-term solution. So, you can trust us when we say that sometimes, outsourcing is actually the right way to overcome a backlog. We still don’t recommend outsourcing the casework itself. That does nothing to help you prevent backlogs in the future. But this blog post covers some tasks that, when contracted to a team with specialized expertise, can build permanent capacity for your team to handle a higher throughput.

A high-throughput forensic DNA laboratory is a complex machine. It needs maintenance to ensure that the day-to-day strain of one step in the process doesn’t reduce the efficiency of the whole. This is especially true with sexual assault casework, which has proven so vulnerable to backlogs.

State by state, progress continues in eliminating the backlog of untested sexual assault kits. With each milestone, probative power is tapped. Processing these kits means brand new leads, justice for victims, and exoneration for the innocent. But some states are catching up by outsourcing this work to third-party laboratories. Unfortunately,…

In the world of forensic science and criminalistics, the sharing of ideas among researchers, professionals, and companies is critical to moving the industry forward. For such a multidisciplinary and novel field, new ideas, new technologies, and new applications are pivotal. So, with in-person events largely shut down by the pandemic,…

The kind of agencies that employ DNA analysts are also the kind that can’t afford to compromise their mission. Redirecting a seasoned analyst to train a new hire risks a slow-down in processing DNA samples—or exacerbating an existing case backlog. That’s why the National Forensic Science Technology Center at Florida…

A guest blog by Ryan Gutierrez, PhD candidate, Sam Houston State University Though commonly found at crime scenes, hair’s reputation as a low-quality forensic sample results in this tissue being underutilized as evidence. Rootless hair shafts, with their low template and degraded DNA, are particularly challenging. Alternative forensic testing workflows,…

In studies conducted by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Applied Genetics Group, the InnoTyper 21 kit proved to be more discriminating than traditional STR and mini-STR multiplexes for degraded DNA fragments less than 150 base pairs in size. The studies, which were presented in a recent AAFS…

2016 was a big year for InnoGenomics, with the commercial release of our DNA testing kits, InnoTyper 21 and InnoQuant HY, that enable forensic DNA laboratories to successfully analyze challenging biological samples. The announcement garnered exposure in GenomeWeb and other media outlets, while fruitful collaborations with prominent members of the…

While 2016 had its share of highlights for us (see http://innogenomics.com/news/2016-highlights/), we are most excited about what lies ahead. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all our partners, colleagues, clients and friends. Your support and collaboration makes this journey more enjoyable and worthwhile. Cheers to an innovative…

InnoGenomics has released new DNA testing kits that allow forensic DNA laboratories to get useful results from challenging biological samples that frequently fail with traditional systems. The new technology is fully compatible with current laboratory instrumentation for seamless implementation.