Applied Biosystems, part of LifeTechnologies, has received approval for AmpFlSTR MiniFiler PCR Amplification Kit for inclusion in the National DNA Index System (NDIS), a US Federal Bureau of Investigation database.
The MiniFiler kit, designed to obtain DNA results from compromised or degraded samples, has utility in a wide range of investigations, including cold cases, missing person cases, exonerations and historical and archeological cases.
With the approval by the NDIS board, the MiniFiler kit will be utilized by US forensic laboratories, with data subsequently uploaded into NDIS, leveraging the database to solve more criminal investigations. The NDIS database is a highly valued tool used by law enforcement professionals in order to compare genetic profile information related to crimes committed across the US, said the company.
Managed by the FBI as the nation’s forensic DNA database, the NDIS database currently contains more than seven million profiles and has produced more than 98,000 matches between a DNA profile and the NDIS database, assisting in more than 97,000 criminal investigations.
Leonard Klevan, president of Human Identification at Life Technologies, said: “We expect that the NDIS approval of the MiniFiler kit, and subsequent uploading of MiniFiler data, will significantly enhance the ability to use results recovered from challenging evidence samples to link crime scenes with potential suspects and other crime scenes.
“Some laboratories have already generated valuable data from unsolved crimes and have been waiting for this opportunity to compare it to the NDIS database. Ultimately, this approval will help solve more crimes, reopen unsolved cold cases, exonerate the wrongly accused and help identify missing persons.”
Introduced in 2007, the MiniFiler Kit is the commercially available reagent kit designed with miniSTR amplicons to increase the ability to obtain DNA results from compromised samples.