Human contact traces
Sub-specialties: body fluids; blood patterns; damage,
DNA, hairs, serology, Other (eg animal identification and other
body fluids eg urine)
Specialists in human contact traces are usually graduates
in biology or another science. They are often involved in the
investigation of sexual and violent offences, which may include the
observation and interpretation of related damage as well as more
directly technical analysis.
The core business of these specialists is to identify the
presence and type of body fluid. They analyse its nature
and distribution and may use techniques including DNA profiling,
serology (blood grouping tests) and microscopy (the use of the
microscope) to identify and compare samples.
A specialist in hairs uses the microscope to compare
the features in recovered hairs with those from a sample taken from
a person. The aim is, again, to determine whether the samples have
come from the same source.
Specialists in blood pattern analysis examine the
distribution of blood staining to help decide what took place
during an incident.
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