title: Disaster victim investigation recommendations from two simulated mass disaster scenarios utilized for user acceptance testing CODIS 6.0.
abstract: Members of the National DNA Data Bank (NDDB) of Canada designed and searched two simulated mass disaster (MD) scenarios for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) 6.0, developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Department of Justice. A simulated airplane MD and inland Tsunami MD were designed representing a closed and open environment respectively. An in-house software program was written to randomly generate DNA profiles from a mock Caucasian population database. As part of the UAT, these two MDs were searched separately using CODIS 6.0. The new options available for identity and pedigree searching in addition to the inclusion of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-STR (short tandem repeat) information in CODIS 6.0, led to rapid identification of all victims. A Joint Pedigree Likelihood Ratio (JPLR) was calculated from the pedigree searches and ranks were stored in Rank Manager providing confidence to the user in assigning an Unidentified Human Remain (UHR) to a pedigree tree. Analyses of the results indicated that primary relatives were more useful in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) compared to secondary or tertiary relatives and that inclusion of mtDNA and/or Y-STR technologies helped to link family units together as shown by the software searches. It is recommended that UHRs have as many informative loci possible to assist with their identification. CODIS 6.0 is a valuable technological tool for rapidly and confidently identifying victims of mass disasters.
authors.affiliation: National DNA Data Bank, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 1200 Vanier Parkway, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0R2, Canada. laurie.bradford@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
authors.forename: Laurie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bradford
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heal
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Nichole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Faragher
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Duval
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lalonde
mesh_terms: D000060:Accidents, Aviation; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting / Q000379:methods*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D004190:Disasters; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D010375:Pedigree; D012984:Software; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences; D057192:Tsunamis
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial