Date of Award

1-1-2013

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Chemistry

Content Description

1 online resource (xvi, 73 pages) : color illustrations.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Igor K Lednev

Committee Members

Barry Duceman, Jayanti Pande, Mehmet Yigit, Alexander Shekhtman

Keywords

body fluid, forensic, identification, Raman spectroscopy, spectra, statistics, Chemistry, Forensic, Body fluids

Subject Categories

Analytical Chemistry | Chemistry | Statistics and Probability

Abstract

Body fluid traces are an important type of forensic evidence, which play a significant role in the reconstruction of a violent crime and often help to identify a victim or suspect based on DNA analysis. Despite a great need, there is no a single method, which could identify multiple body fluids. In addition, majority of current methods are destructive for the evidence. For about eight years, our laboratory has been working on the development of a new nondestructive method for identification of body fluid traces based on Raman microspectroscopy combined with advanced statistics. High differentiation power of the method has been well demonstrated for pure body fluids. However, the practical application requires expanding the technique to real-life conditions. The focus of this study was on body fluid mixtures and heavily contaminated samples. In addition, a proof-of-concept study was performed for evaluating whether the method could provide information for an early genetic profiling of the suspect.

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