Burnt bones and skeletal remnants continue to challenge the proficiency of
forensic investigations in human individualization and identification. The various
natural disasters and human inflicted crimes involving fire leave the forensic
investigators with very little to work on. Thus, demand for practical studies to
obtain useful facts for improvisation of current techniques and to overcome
the short comings is a prerequisite. In this study Design of Experiments (DOE)
as an investigative and screening tool to relate the different variables (burning
temperature, time, thickness of flesh, presence of accelerants) involved in
the burning process and to detect the probability of obtaining successful DNA
identification from burnt bones is proposed. We show that high temperature
and large base pair PCR primer have a significant effect on DNA retrieval and
amplification. The baking study provides reproducible DNA identification with
maximum retrieval temperature of 320°C for the smallest (106bp) amplicon.
The study involving accelerants demonstrates that those with high specific heat
capacity decrease DNA recovery, hence suggesting probable damage to DNA.
Through this study the positive effect of presence of flesh for DNA recovery
was also verified with a maximum DNA recovery temperature of 500°C. Utilizing
all these information through DOE, predictive models were also created with
regression equations to calculate positive DNA amplification and to predict the
different variables respective to the burning process. These models created
using porcine bones could be related for real scenarios and with more data
procurement it could be used effectively in forensic investigations
