Contemporary overview: the maturity of forensic DNA phenotyping

Abstract

The rapid developments of sciences and technologies, during the 19-20 centuries, germinate the new branch of scientific discipline - merging the applications ofvarious branches of sciences, mainly biology,with the legal applications -called forensic science. The emergence of forensic sciencehas the revolutionary impacts on the criminal justice systemas the system, itself, has torebalance the equation due to the new strong player comes into play. At present, the DNA technology, in particular DNA fingerprinting, is no longer a scientific jargon for the criminal justice system. Instead, the usage of DNA fingerprint technology becomes a general norm for criminal investigation due to its high, possibly highest so far, power of discrimination which allows the method of criminal suspect deduction becomes at ease. As time goes by, the DNA fingerprinting technology seems to become bygone and soon to be substituted or, at best, co-existed by more advance DNA technology. Forensic DNA phenotyping, the DNA technology that is able to create the human facial reconstruction from DNA materials retrieved from the crime scenes, could be the future fashion in forensic culture. At current stage, the forensic DNA phenotyping technology, however, does not reach the maturity of its development yet. Although forensic DNA phenotyping does have better merits, its accuracy is still unparallel to perfection.