dna and dna evidence 1137.3.4 DNA Laboratory Quality Assurance
The forensic DNA community has achieved an enviable degree of standard-
ization throughout its casework processes. The community adheres to a con-
sistent application of quality assurance measures that include the delineation
of roles and responsibilities of laboratory management, minimum education
requirements for laboratory staff, established standards for training, annual
proficiency testing, guidelines for the validation of new equipment and tech-
nologies, and mandatory components for inclusion in the final report.
Although the growth of forensic DNA laboratories began years earlier,
the first national effort to ensure the reliability of equipment and casework
conclusions was formed by the FBI as the Technical Working Group on
DNA Analysis Methods (TWGDAM).18,19 This group was composed of com-
mercial, academic, and government scientists and in 1989 released the first
“Guidelines for a Quality Assurance Program for DNA Analysis.” TWGDAM
continued to work in conjunction with the National Institute for Science and
Technology to develop a set of laboratory reference standards to ensure con-
sistency of DNA equipment performance.18,20
In 1994, the DNA Identification Act established the TWGDAM guide-
lines as the national standards for forensic DNA laboratory operations until
the director of the FBI issued his own. To facilitate the development of those
federal standards, the FBI established a DNA Advisory Board (DAB) from
1995 to 2000. Subsequently, the DAB released two sets of standards, one for
processing crime scene evidence and the other to address the analysis of
convicted offender database samples.21–23 Thus, in October 1998, the Quality
Assurance Standards for DNA Testing Laboratories became effective. The
Quality Assurance Standards for Convicted Offender DNA Databasing
Laboratories followed in April 1999.
TWGDAM was renamed the Scientific Working Group on DNA
Analysis Methods (SWGDAM) in 1999. Once the charter for the DAB
expired in November 2000, SWGDAM inherited the responsibility for
the maintenance and updating of the national standards under the con-
tinuing sponsorship of the FBI. Compliance with these standards became
a prerequisite for participation in the National DNA Index System pro-
gram and to be eligible for grants provided by the National Institutes of
Justice. Federal, state, local, and even commercial laboratories all began
to adapt their operations to accommodate these standards. Between
SWGDAM and its predecessor TWGDAM, sequentially updated versions
of the Quality Assurance Standards (QAS) were released in 1991, 1995,
and 2004.^18 The director of the FBI is expected to approve an updated
version in 2008.
All federally funded, federally operated and Combined DNA Index
System (CODIS) participating laboratories are required to demonstrate