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Lloyd Sealy Library
John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Forensic science: DNA & genomics

A guide to finding (mostly published) information in forensic science. By Ellen Sexton.

Internet sites

National Institutes of Health,  science education - genes

DNA Learning Center.  Educational materials from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Deciphering life's enigmatic code (about the Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1962). 

ENCODE.  Building a list of functional elements in the human genome, including elements that act at the protein and RNA levels, and regulatory elements that control cells and circumstances in which a gene is active.  The Nature magazine ENCODE site  allows access to published articles linked by themes. (these are the articles that repudiate the idea of "junk" DNA.)

Federal DNA Database Unit (FDDU) of the FBI. "serves the greater forensic community by aiding investigations through hit confirmations against individuals whose profiles are in the National DNA Index System (NDIS).  Agencies submit blood or buccal samples to the unit from individuals who are required by law to do so. These include individuals convicted of, arrested for, or facing charges of certain qualifying federal crimes or convicted of qualifying District of Columbia offenses, as well as non-U.S. citizens who are detained under the authority of the United States. FDDU then produces a DNA profile for each of these individuals and uploads it to the NDIS, which is part of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)."   

GenBank.  GenBank ® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences. 

Genetics and Public Policy Center.   At Johns Hopkins University.  Aims to help policymakers, the press, and the public understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities of genetic medicine and its potential to transform global public health.

Human Genome (Wellcome Trust site, in the U.K.). "A free resource allowing you to explore the human genome, your health and your future".

Human Genome Project. Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 13-year project to identify all the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA, determine the sequences of the 3 billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA, store this information in databases, improve tools for data analysis,, transfer related technologies to the private sector, and address the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) that may arise from the project. 

Innocence Project.  The project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

International Barcode for Life project  - a global collaboration of biodiversity scientists creating a DNA barcode reference library for all multi-cellular life.

National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).  A part of the National library of Medicine, advances science and health by providing access to biomedical and genomic information.

National Human Genome Research Institute. (NIH).  U.S. Federal agency for genomics research, focusing on human health and disease. 

 

Books in the Library

Informatics

Wikipedia list of biological databases for genomes, protein sequences models and interactions, signal tranduction and metabolic pathways,  taxonomies, etc.