A team of researchers from the School of Science at IUPUI and Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands has developed a pigmentation profiling tool (called the HIrisPlex-S DNA test system) that can predict eye, hair, and skin color from even the smallest DNA sample, which could come from a crime scene or archaeological remains. This new tool can provide a physical description that was never before possible.
The tool is meant to be used when there is no reference DNA. The tool works by leveraging a free web tool, which can be used by law enforcement or anthropologists to enter relevant data.
Says forensic geneticist and co-study director, Susan Walsh from IUPUI, “We have previously provided law enforcement and anthropologists with DNA tools for eye color and combined eye and hair color, but skin color has been more difficult. Importantly, we are directly predicting actual skin color divided into five subtypes -- very pale, pale, intermediate, dark, and dark to black -- using DNA markers from the genes that determine an individual's skin coloration. This is not the same as identifying genetic ancestry. You might say it's more similar to specifying a paint color in a hardware store rather than denoting race or ethnicity.”
Walsh continues, “If anyone asks an eyewitness what they saw, the majority of time they mention hair color and skin color. What we are doing is using genetics to take an objective look at what they saw.” The study, "HIrisPlex-S System for Eye, Hair and Skin Colour Prediction from DNA: Introduction and Forensic Developmental Validation," is published in the journal, Forensic Science International: Genetics.
Manfred Kayser of Erasmus MC and co-leader of the study notes, "With our new HIrisPlex-S system, for the first time, forensic geneticists and genetic anthropologists are able to simultaneously generate eye, hair and skin color information from a DNA sample, including DNA of the low quality and quantity often found in forensic casework and anthropological studies.”