Bodies of Science and Law: Forensic DNA Profiling, Biological Bodies, and Biopower

How is jurisdiction transferred from an individual's biological body to agents of power such as the police, public prosecutor and judiciary, and what happens to these biological bodies when transformed from private into public objects? These questions are examined by analyzing bodies situated at the intersection of science and law. More specifically, the transformation of 'private bodies' into 'public bodies' shall be analyzed by going into the details of forensic DNA profiling in the Dutch jurisdiction. It will be argued that various 'forensic genetic practices' enact different 'forensic genetic bodies'. These enacted forensic genetic bodies are connected with various infringements of civil rights, which become articulated in exploring these forensic genetic bodies' 'normative registers'

Beyond DNA: Epigenetics and Proteomics in Forensic Science

The use of genetic evidence in criminal cases is well established and has improved the public opinion and credibility of forensic science. However, several shortcomings associated with current genetic profiling techniques exist. Scientific research aimed at increasing the overall knowledge and understanding of biological factors will lead to the development of methods capable of improving the discriminating power of DNA evidence, overcoming limitations associated with DNA evidence, or complementing current methods of DNA profiling. Increased research in the fields of epigenetics and proteomics are particularly promising and relevant to forensic science. Research suggests that epigenetic biomarkers can be used to approximate the age of biological sample donors, differentiate between DNA of monozygotic twins, distinguish between natural and synthesized DNA, and identify body fluid sources from forensic material. Proteomic research studies indicate that mass spectrometry can be used to identify biological matrices and tissue sources from forensic biological samples without compromising DNA evidence. The demand for improved forensic techniques necessitates further research into these fields and, specifically, how the associated methods can be used in forensic science

Trumping communitarianism: crime control and forensic DNA typing and databasing in Singapore

Liberalism and communitarianism have figured prominently in discussions of how to govern forensic DNA practices (forensic DNA typing and databasing). Despite the prominence of these two political philosophies and their underlying values, no studies have looked at the governance of forensic DNA practices in a nondemocratic country governed by a communitarian logic. To fill this lacuna in the literature, this article considers Singapore as an authoritarian state governed by a communitarian philosophy. The article highlights basic innovations and technologies of forensic DNA practices and articulates a liberal democratic version of “biolegality” as described by Michael Lynch and Ruth McNally. It goes on to consider briefly various (political) philosophies (liberalism and communitarianism) and law enforcement models (due process and crime control models). The main part of the article records the trajectory, and hence biolegal progress, of forensic DNA practices in Singapore and compares it with trajectories in England and the United States. The article concludes that Singapore's forensic DNA practices are organized according to the crime control model and therefore safety and the war against crime and terrorism trump individual rights and legal principles such as privacy, bodily integrity, proportionality, presumption of innocence. and onus of proof

Personalized approaches for the management of glaucoma

Introduction: Personalized medicine is the future goal across all specialties. Accurate prediction of optimal treatment beneficial and adverse effects could transform patient management. This is of particular importance in chronic conditions, where a ‘trial and error’ approach over months and years can contribute to significant morbidity. Glaucoma is a chronic irreversible progressive optic neuropathy, a leading cause of blindness worldwide. An ideal personalized approach in glaucoma clinic would be to answer the inevitable question in a patient’s first visit: ‘Which treatment option will work best for me so that I won’t go blind?’ / Areas covered: This review will give an overview of the knowledge we have acquired to achieve this goal, particularly discussing using patient’s individual risk factors, their genetic profile, and different treatment modalities, including therapy compliance, to personalize care. / Expert opinion: Pharmacogenomics and genetic profiling are the most tangible ways in which glaucoma management can be personalized. Future challenges will include developing realistic animal models to reflect the underlying genetic patterns in glaucoma to investigate their interaction with different treatments

The utility of NBS profiling for plant systematics: a first study in tuber-bearing Solanum species

Systematic relationships are important criteria for researchers and breeders to select materials. We evaluated a novel molecular technique, nucleotide binding site (NBS) profiling, for its potential in phylogeny reconstruction. NBS profiling produces multiple markers in resistance genes and their analogs (RGAs). Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is a crop with a large secondary genepool, which contains many important traits that can be exploited in breeding programs. In this study we used a set of over 100 genebank accessions, representing 49 tuber-bearing wild and cultivated Solanum species. NBS profiling was compared to amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Cladistic and phenetic analyses showed that the two techniques had similar resolving power and delivered trees with a similar topology. However, the different statistical tests used to demonstrate congruency of the trees were inconclusive. Visual inspection of the trees showed that, especially at the lower level, many accessions grouped together in the same way in both trees; at the higher level, when looking at the more basal nodes, only a few groups were well supported. Again this was similar for both techniques. The observation that higher level groups were poorly supported might be due to the nature of the material and the way the species evolved. The similarity of the NBS and AFLP results indicate that the role of disease resistance in speciation is limite