Natural Traces: Natural Traces in forensic investigations - how the analysis of non-human evidence can solve crime

自然痕迹：法医调查中的自然痕迹 - 非人类证据分析如何解决犯罪

• 批准号: EP/Y036743/1
• 负责人: M. Alejandra Perotti
• 金额: $ 33.22万
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY036743%2F1
• 关键词: Natural; Traces; forensic; investigations; how

Literally any crime scene contains animal, plant, soil, microbial or environmental traces. Examples include pet hairs or saliva, pollenand algae, soil and soil organisms like bacteria or nematodes, fungal spores, insects, and environmental traces in the form ofenvironmental DNA of any origin. Such biological traces can be found mainly on living people (suspects, victims), on objects like carsor weapons, and on bodies not just on the surface but also in their surroundings like single or mass graves, or an aquatic environment.In the EU, there is a lack of training opportunities in applied topics of forensic science at postgraduate level, such as the qualitativeand quantitative analysis of specifically such non-human biological traces. While many EU countries have forensic laboratories thatalso such traces, a much broader, integrated knowledge base is needed, built on close cooperation between basic research inacademia and analysis and application in casework by forensic specialists. NATURAL JUSTICE aims to optimise the procedures fortaking and analysing non-human traces in order to meet the ever-increasing demands for identifying suspects and victims and to linktraces to different places, times or courses of action. The results based on this need a statistical robustness that will also hold up in thecourtroom under cross-examination.The proposal aims for 10 PhD students with a background in life sciences. They will build their knowledge and experience in practicalforensics in training schools provided by academic, non-academic partners, and police academies or laboratories. The trainingembeds biological evidence in a Bayesian framework, making it universally comparable with all other forms of evidence, by applyingnovel probabilistic approaches to extract forensic useful information from metadata. It is truly cross-sectoral, with secondments atend-users of the training (e.g. police forces) and joint supervision by PIs from different countries.

从字面上看，任何犯罪现场都包含动物、植物、土壤、微生物或环境痕迹。例子包括宠物毛发或唾液、花粉和藻类、土壤和土壤生物体如细菌或线虫、真菌孢子、昆虫以及任何来源的环境DNA形式的环境痕迹。此类生物痕迹主要存在于活人（嫌疑人、受害者）、汽车或武器等物体上，以及尸体上，不仅在表面，而且在其周围环境（如单个坟墓或乱葬坑）或水生环境中。研究生阶段缺乏法医学应用主题的培训机会，例如对此类非人类生物痕迹的定性和定量分析。虽然许多欧盟国家都有法医实验室，也可以追踪此类痕迹，但仍需要一个更广泛、综合的知识库，该知识库建立在学术界基础研究与法医专家在案例工作中的分析和应用之间的密切合作基础上。自然正义旨在优化非人类痕迹的采集和分析程序，以满足识别嫌疑人和受害者以及将痕迹与不同地点、时间或行动过程联系起来的不断增长的需求。基于此的结果需要具有统计稳健性，并且在法庭交叉质询中也能成立。该提案针对 10 名具有生命科学背景的博士生。他们将在学术、非学术合作伙伴以及警察学院或实验室提供的培训学校中积累实践取证方面的知识和经验。该培训将生物证据嵌入贝叶斯框架中，通过应用新颖的概率方法从元数据中提取法医有用信息，使其与所有其他形式的证据具有普遍可比性。它是真正的跨部门培训，由来自不同国家的 PI 借调参加培训（例如警察部队）并进行联合监督。