Salting Crime Scenes with Fake DNA Becomes Possible

Ronald Bailey | August 18, 2009

CSI Miami DNA Test The New York Times is reporting a fascinating new study by researchers in Israel in which they have fooled crime scene tests with DNA they manufactured. According to the Times:

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. The researchers also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.” ...

Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome.

“DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,” she said. “We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.”

In the first case, the researchers amplified a small sample of DNA, the amount that might be obtained from a drinking cup or shed hair. In this case, the DNA-containing white blood cells were removed from a woman's blood and the amplified DNA from a man's hair was added to the sample which was then tested at a foresics lab.

The second technique is more worrisome. DNA forensics databases like CODIS store genetic profiles using 13 different DNA variants found in a person's genome. As the Times explains:

From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.

Of course, if someone was trying finger a specific person with fake DNA constructed using CODIS variants, they would have to know which specific variants the target carries. Obtaining that information is currently difficult because access to DNA profiles stored in CODIS is restricted to law enforcement agencies.

Lead author Frumkin is the founder of a company, Nucleix, that offers a test that can distinguish between fake and real DNA. Real DNA is methylated; the fake DNA used in this study is not. Want to bet how long it will be before fake methylated DNA is possible?

The Times also mentions one additional concern is that celebrities might have their DNA taken from cups or hairs by genetic paparazzi. As I explained in my December 2008 column "Exposing Obama's Genome," these gene stalkers could amplify the sample and test them to find out about the celebrity's ancestry and genetic disease probabilities. I suspect that this kind of breach of privacy will become no more or less annoying than photos taken of celebrities when they dine out.

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|8.18.09 @ 6:39PM|#

Free OJ! Oh, wait a second.

Distressing development, no doubt.

|8.18.09 @ 6:42PM|#

if someone was trying finger a specific person with fake DNA constructed using CODIS variants, they would have to know which specific variants the target carries. Obtaining that information is currently difficult because access to DNA profiles stored in CODIS is restricted to law enforcement agencies.

...unless it's an LEO who's trying to frame you. Luckily, such an occurrence is inconceivable. </sarcasm>

anarch|8.18.09 @ 6:43PM|#

So we're back again to depending on some people to be honest? Personal integrity re-emerges as an irreducible component of social life? Or only till the next fail-safe technological advance?

|8.18.09 @ 6:45PM|#

Of course you could have always amplified a small sample of DNA ever since they used DNA in forensics in the first place....in fact they amplify a small sample of DNA in any forensics test anyway so they can get a large sample of a small sample to test....

and of course nothing ever prevented a potential crime fabricator from simply taking your bed sheets and couch cushions and fluffing them on a fake crime scene anytime they wanted.

Really no new news here.

Craig|8.18.09 @ 7:00PM|#

Obtaining that information is currently difficult because access to DNA profiles stored in CODIS is restricted to law enforcement agencies.

What a relief! We all know no one ever gets framed by law enforcement personnel!

|8.18.09 @ 7:28PM|#

I'm encrypting my DNA.

|8.18.09 @ 7:37PM|#

"""and of course nothing ever prevented a potential crime fabricator from simply taking your bed sheets and couch cushions and fluffing them on a fake crime scene anytime they wanted.

Really no new news here."""

"The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person."

That's a little different than what your talking about.

|8.18.09 @ 7:59PM|#

sweet something new to stress over

Nipplemancer|8.18.09 @ 8:03PM|#

it's official, we're all fucked.

Heinrick|8.18.09 @ 8:18PM|#

So how long before we can engineer a virus to target someones DNA. Maybe something spread through the air, but when it is in contact with a specific DNA it does something different.

|8.18.09 @ 8:49PM|#

"Obtaining that information is currently difficult because access to DNA profiles stored in CODIS is restricted to law enforcement agencies."

Wait, does this sentence mean Ron Bailey's a troll?

|8.18.09 @ 9:13PM|#

Heinrick,

Read Frank Herbert's The White Plague.

|8.18.09 @ 9:20PM|#

Please don't tell Hayne.

jtuf|8.18.09 @ 9:20PM|#

I don't consider DNA left at crime scenes as reliable evidence any more. It's way too easy to buy a pair of boxers with, um, DNA on them at some websites. A criminal could just leave one of those to throw the cops off.

|8.18.09 @ 9:33PM|#

jtuf

If you didn't sell your boxers with um on them on those websites, there wouldn't be a problem.

|8.18.09 @ 10:24PM|#

Of course the major effect of this will be to prevent convictions of actual dangerous felons. Defense attorneys will convince juries that this theoretical possibility is a "police conspiracy" against their innocent clients. I'd bet that will happen 1000 times for every time anyone uses this technique to frame anybody.

|8.18.09 @ 11:21PM|#

Fortunately the wise black females on the OJ Simpson jury understood this concept many years ago. Mark Fuhrman and Karl Rove's diabolical plot to frame the black man failed, and the rest is history.

$|8.18.09 @ 11:48PM|#

I'd bet that will happen 1000 times for every time anyone uses this technique to frame anybody.

Don't. There aren't enough felony "not guilty" verdicts to get 1000 times anything.

Abdul|8.19.09 @ 8:33AM|#

So many hookers to kill, and so many innocent people to frame, where does one even start?

henry|8.19.09 @ 4:28PM|#

Well, DNA has always been a good form of evidence and proof as to really what happened. I believe in DNA, 100%

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