"[Sept. 11] prompted us to cut to the chase on the research front and show that our approach really would work," says Danielson. "In the absence of that added pressure it probably would have taken one to two years to get to where we are now." In a pilot study using San Jose, Calif.-based Transgenomic's WAVE™ Nucleic Acid Fragment Analysis System, Danielson and Shelton demonstrated that WAVE profiling, one of the most effective technologies for rapidly identifying new genetic mutations potentially involved in the formation of human tumors, could quickly and cheaply perform a kind of DNA analysis called mitotyping. This technique and other advances in DNA forensics promise to speed DNA identification at disaster sites and war zones, and in criminal investigations.
That is when mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes into play, says Terry Melton, president and founder of State College, Pa.-based Mitotyping Technologies. Melton is on an advisory panel ...
