As the Department of Justice DNA Data Bank waits for the human remains found at an abandoned well in San Joaquin County, the media toured the facility to see how scientists receive and process evidence.

In a training lab on Friday, criminalist specialists displayed an adult femur.

"We get remains that have been out in the elements for weeks to months to years so we get them looking like everything imagineable," Senior Criminalist Theresa Wheeler said. "Some of them are really brittle, dry, bleached out from the sun and others have been buried under dirt for a really long time."

In the lab, technicians remove any contaminants from bones or fragments.

Part of the bone is then put into an impactor where it is shaken and becomes dust; the texture is similar to flour in your kitchen. A chemical is added to separate the DNA from other materials in the bone - the amount of DNA depends on the condition of the remains.

"The challenge is that there's not a lot of DNA present in bone to begin with and then over time there's even less DNA present so we're faced with a very minute amount of DNA to work with," Department of Justice  Criminalist Supervisor Dr. John Tonkyn said.

In another lab, scientists extract the DNA.

Forensic scientists then make multiple copies of the DNA fragments, creating called amplified DNA fragments. They do this because the amount of DNA is small and scientists need enough DNA to be detected by their instruments, according to Tonkyn.

In some cases, the lab uses DNA samples from family members to compare DNA with the unidentified remains.

The process could take weeks or months to identify the victims.

"We can't rush the science," said Tonkyn. "We don't want to compromise any of the quality measures that we have so the processes that we have set up for DNA extraction typing do take time."

News10/KXTV

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