Timeline of Events

Chapter 7 – DNA Fingerprinting

1980 – American geneticists discover a region of DNA that does not hold any genetic information and is extremely variable between individuals.

1984 – Sir Alec Jeffreys discovers a method of identifying individuals from DNA – Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP), dubbed DNA Fingerprinting.

1985 – UK police first use forensic DNA profiling.

1986 – Kerry Mullis discovers Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method of replicating particular regions of a DNA molecule.

1986 – DNA is used for the first time to solve a crime. Jeffreys uses DNA profiling to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of two young girls in the English Midlands.

1986 – The human genetic group at Cetus Corporation develop the PCR technique for a number of clinical and forensic applications, resulting in the development of the first commercial PCR typing kit specifically for forensic use.

Timeline of Events (continued)

1987 – DNA profiling is introduced for the first time in a US criminal court.

1992 – Thomas Caskey can colleagues publish the first paper suggesting the use of short tandem repeats for forensic DNA analysis.

1995 – The world’s first national DNA database commences operations in the UK.

Timeline of Events (continued)

1996 – The FBI introduce computerized searches of AFIS.

1996 – Mitochondria DNA evidence is used in court for the first time in the US.

1996 – Police establish the National Criminal DNA Database in the UK.

1998 – An FBI DNA database, NIDIS, is put into practice.

Timeline of Events (continued)

Related Areas of Science• Biology – • DNA structure and function• Enzymes

• Chemistry • Dyes and other molecules that will bind to specific DNA

sequences

•Math• Probability