dna and dna evidence 127
levels perform electronic data comparisons and exchanges through NDIS by
using CODIS software. CODIS software has also been loaned to over forty
international law enforcement laboratories in over twenty-five countries for
their own database programs.^70 The recent passage of the DNA Fingerprint
Act of 2005 will expand the reach of CODIS submissions to include non-U.S.
citizens detained or arrested by other federal agencies during border protec-
tion and homeland security activities.
The successes of the CODIS software and the NDIS program has logically
led to an expansion of both in other areas too. In 2000, the FBI laboratory
began to plan for another database to be called the National Missing Persons
DNA Database (NMPDD) to aid in finding over one hundred thousand per-
sons listed as missing by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and identifying the
over forty thousand unnamed remains that are held in various jurisdictions
across the United States. The NMPDD will comprise three indices, to include
the STR profiles and mtDNA sequences of (1) persons known to be missing
whenever a source of DNA is available, (2) close family members of the miss-
ing person, and (3) any unidentified human remains.70,71 To facilitate potential
matching of unidentified remains with their relatives’ DNA profiles, CODIS
software will be upgraded to perform kinship analyses or familial searching.
This software will be similar to those previously used by the Armed Forces
DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) to identify American war dead and
by the New York City Office of the Medical Examiner and AFDIL to identify
victims from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Glossary
Like most technical specialists in the forensic community, DNA scientists
use terms that can make an already complex subject even more confusing.
Most odontologists will be familiar with the fundamentals of biology and
biochemistry because of their own educational background. However, the
words and phrases used in this chapter and explained below will provide the
odontologist with the additional vocabulary necessary to understand basic
forensic DNA oral and written presentations.9,10,72
Allele: The variant in a DNA fragment size or in a DNA sequence at a par-
ticular locus is called an allele. The more alleles that naturally occur
at a given locus in a given population increase the discriminating
power of that locus. When paired (homologous) chromosomes each
have the same allele at the same locus they are called homozygous.
When the two alleles are different between the paired chromosomes,
they are said to be heterozygous.