Bacterial Fingerprints, Sci Friday

[L.J.Steele]

Up next, something I'm sure you're going to see this ripped from the headlines, as they say on television, soon on CSI, it's going to be coming soon, I'm sure. It's the bacteria fingerprinting or bacteria signatures. You know that bacteria - you know, they live all over your body, they're on your hands and even if you wash them regularly, you can't really get rid of them. And these bacteria can be transferred to anything you touch.

Now the researchers have shown that by looking at the bacteria on an object -let's say, a keyboard on your computer - they can figure out who touched that object. The bacteria on your hands are unique to you, and that bacterial signature you leave behind can be traced back to you.

Joining me now to talk more about it is Rob Knight, he is Early Career Scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry and computer science at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =124901324

[Pat A. Wertheim]

The worst thing about this is that all of the gung ho detectives around the world will start asking for bacterial analyses in their evidence submissions next week.

[Peter Griffin]

This kind of reminds me of how the FBI found the person they believed was responsible for sending the anthrax laced letters back in the day. They had all of the scientists in the country working with anthrax send in a sample and compared those profiles to the DNA profile of the anthrax found in the letters. Of the few thousand samples only a couple matched and when they asked the scientists with the matching samples where they got their anthrax from they all pointed to Bruce Ivins. The sample he submitted did not match, but when they went to his lab and collected a sample from the source he was using they found that it matched. He eventually killed himself before they could prosecute him, but there was some pretty good circumstantial evidence linking him to it.

This will be interesting what they can do with it. They should really start looking at its persistency though if they want to apply it to crimes.
PG