My research interests concern the use of state-of-the-art technology to identify individuals from physiological fluids and tissues, and to associate biological crime scene evidence with a suspect. Forensic DNA analysis has been termed a revolutionary technique which resulted from the ground-breaking work of Drs. Kary Mullis and Alec Jeffries. The technology has evolved ever since.

The late 80’s saw the adoption of RFLP (DNA Fingerprinting) methods by a number of public and private laboratories. The FBI and other Federal, State and County laboratories became keenly interested in the promise of this technology. There was a clear transition from protein analysis to nucleotide analysis, the latter being far superior because of a greater degree of polymorphism that exists at various genetic loci within the genome. During the early 90's, the expensive and time consuming RFLP procedure has been supplanted by the use of analyses of evidence that had been amplified by the Polymerase Chain Reaction technology to generate large quantities of genetic material from, often, miniscule amounts of evidence found at crime scenes. The amplified DNA can then be tested using a variety of different methods such as reverse dot blot procedures, gel or capillary electrophoresis.

Currently, my research is focused on single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection and on sequencing technology. Although SNP analysis is not yet performed by forensic laboratories, it is in many ways far superior to the current widely used PCR-STR analysis. The forensic biology laboratory at John Jay boasts all the necessary equipment to perform all types of forensic DNA analysis. This equipment includes ABI-Prism sequencers (310 and 377), the latter being a gel electrophoresis instrument and the former being a capillary electrophoresis instrument. It also includes an ABI Taqman for real time PCR studies as well as SNP detection. SNP detection is also accomplished with a Transgenomic Wave instrument. The laboratory is also equipped with an Agilent system which features the latest chip technology for human identification. The Lab on a Chip uses micro-capillary electrophoresis followed by gene scanning to accomplish identification.