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The DNA of those who died in the Uttarakhand floods and cannot be identified now is being preserved, with officials saying that many of the bodies have decomposed.

Officials of the State Government, with forensic experts, sub-divisional magistrates and police officials, have now started an operation to identify dead bodies and in cases where they cannot, preserve their DNA.

The officials reached Gaurikund and Kedarnath and said that some bodies had decomposed and stood no chance of being identified.

Things are in a mess, many bodies have been eaten up by dogs, many have decomposed and many are lying buried under the debris, mud and boulders, said an official.

With people and pilgrims stranded at the Kedar valley completely evacuated on Sunday, the army and other authorities involved in the rescue would on Monday begin to focus on people still caught up in Badrinath and Harsil, officials said.

Officials told IANS that the death toll and trail of devastation would now become more harrowing as rescuers spend their energy on fishing out the dead from the Kedar valley and the nearby areas.

Dozens of villages, several vehicle parking lots where cars were parked with the drivers inside, have been washed away in the torrential rains ... there must be hundreds missing from there, the official said.

A day after Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said he feared that 1,000 people might have been killed in the calamity, the States Disaster Management Minister Yashpal Arya put the death toll at at least 5,000.

Interacting with reporters at the Jolly Grant airport in the State capital, Mr. Arya said: At least 5,000 people must have been killed in the deluge, we cannot say with surety but the number can go even higher.

People returning to safety from the rain ravaged areas put the number of dead at many thousands (with) many (who) died of cold, illness, lack of food and water.

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DNA of Uttarakhand flood victims being preserved

Photo by: The News-Gazette

Peter Buckley, deputy chief at the Douglas County Sheriff's office, holds cotton swabs, which are used to swab the inside of a mouth for DNA sampling. Two sets of swabs are used for each inside cheek, with the cheeks being swabbed six times each.

Image

While the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month upheld the police practice of taking DNA samples from persons who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime, it hasn't yet translated into additional swabbing for DNA by area law enforcement.

But some area sheriff's offices are looking at setting up DNA-testing policies in light of the court's decision.

The court ruled 5-4 that DNA sampling after an arrest "for a serious offense" and when officers "bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody" does not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches.

Under those specifications, the court said in the decision, "taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment."

Douglas County Chief Deputy Peter Buckley said there has been no increase in DNA swabbing there so far.

"We have been doing swabbing on an occasional basis," Buckley said. "Right now, if we believe a suspect's DNA is at the crime scene, we will ask to do swabbing. Especially in sexual assault cases, there can be DNA left at the scene that can provide evidence.

"Then we will take DNA from inside a person's cheek and see if it matches the DNA that was left from the sexual assault."

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Supreme Court DNA ruling hasn't made changes locally

For an example of how DNA testing works, suppose that in a case of sexual assault police are able to collect some biological samples left by the attacker.

An officer can send the samples to a crime lab to be tested for DNA.

DNA is a molecule that contains a person's genetic code and determines the person's traits. Every cell of a person's body contains a complete set of DNA.

While 99.9 percent of two persons' DNA will be identical, the remaining 0.1 percent of the DNA code sequences varies from person to person, making each human unique, according to Douglas County Chief Deputy Peter Buckley.

These sequences, known as genetic markers, are the part of the code analyzed by a DNA test.

Forensic scientists at a crime lab analyze the genetic markers and create a DNA "fingerprint."

Once the biological sample has been analyzed at the crime lab, police can check state and national databases to see if any persons previously swabbed matched the DNA.

If the person had never been convicted and had never been swabbed, his or her DNA profile would not be in the database.

But, under the Supreme Court decision, if a person has been arrested under certain conditions, police could go ahead and swab him or her for DNA, and a match might be found.

When the crime lab finds a match, it obtains the identity of the person whose DNA matches it and informs the appropriate law enforcement officials.

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Here's how DNA testing by the police works

Dumka, June 23: Deoghar police today received DNA test reports from Ranchis forensic lab in what can be a major breakthrough to nail the culprits of the brutal gangrape-and-murder of two Jasidih schoolgirls last month.

Deoghar superintendent of police Nirmal Kumar Prasad said vaginal swab samples of the victims as well as condoms found at the crime site had been sent to Ranchi state forensic science lab for DNA profiling.

Test results received today have shown specific male DNA profiling. These have to be matched with the blood samples of accused Sudhir Kumar and Sonu Singh, who are in Deoghar jail, as well as other suspects. This will prove to be conclusive evidence against the culprits involved in the gangrape and murder of the schoolgirls, Prasad added.

More suspects are under our scanner, SP Prasad added. We will nab all the culprits. Scientific evidence takes time but is watertight, promised the SP.

Exactly four weeks have passed since the two 13-year-old girls were last seen alive in front of their Police Lines home on Sunday, May 26, around 5pm. The bodies of the Class VIII students, both daughters of policemen, were recovered from a pond near Police Lines, on May 27 night.

But despite evidence indicting Deoghar constable Sudhir Kumar as well as his friends, including Sonu Singh, the nephew of another constable Kamakhya Singh, local Jasidih police tried to dilute the investigation initially in what was widely seen as a bid to shield the culprits.

Mounting public anger and political pressure across party lines forced police top brass and CID to intervene.

The coming week will prove crucial for the ongoing investigation as the court of subdivisional magistrate, Deoghar, will issue its decision on June 26 on Sudhirs narco test, proposed by the police. Prime accused Sudhir has been denying any involvement in the crime.

We will also seek the courts permission for remand to take polygraph tests of the arrested duo, said SP Prasad. We will do this in the next couple of days, he added.

The possibility of our making fresh request for a narco test on Sonu is not also be ruled out, the SP said but did not give details.

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DNA boost to rape-kill case

The three-dimensional structure of DNA affects gene expression.

A protein's function cannot be inferred from the linear sequence of its constituent amino acids. Its pattern of folding provides the function. Much the same is true of DNA, according to a study published today in Nature Genetics.

The serpentine convolutions of DNA expose certain exons and hide others, affecting their transcription, the study stated. Researchers imaged the genome's 3D structure at high resolution and compared it with known patterns of gene expression and splicing.

This means that digital models of DNA's functions are incomplete. The non-digital folding patterns of the genome control gene expression.

The study was led by Tim Mercer and Professor John Mattick from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, and John Stamatoyannopoulos from the University of Washington in Seattle.

"We can infer that the genome is folded in such a way that the promoter region the sequence that initiates transcription of a gene is located alongside exons, and they are all presented to transcription machinery," Mercer said in a Garvan Institute press release.

Mercer presented an image of DNA folded in a pattern that regulated expression by presenting or hiding regions, without chemically modifying them.

"Imagine a long and immensely convoluted grape vine, its twisted branches presenting some grapes to be plucked easily, while concealing others beyond reach," Mercer said in the press release. "At the same time, imagine a lazy fruit picker only picking the grapes within easy reach. The same principle applies in the genome. Specific genes and even specific exons, are placed within easy reach by folding."

The paper concluded that the 3D structure of DNA folding can generate complex patterns of interactions that explain some of the human genome's hitherto unexplained actions.

"The privileged demarcation of exons could readily generate transcriptional complexity from the modular architecture of the human genome, whereby a single exon can be spliced into a range of overlapping coding and noncoding transcripts," the paper stated.

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DNA twists to control function

Dehradun, June 24 (IANS) The DNA of those who died in calamity-hit Uttarakhand and now cannot be identified is being preserved, with officials saying that many of the bodies have decomposed.

Officials of the state government, with forensic experts, sub divisional magistrates and the police officials have now started an operation to identify dead bodies and in cases where they cannot, preserve their DNA.

The officials reached Gaurikund and Kedarnath and said that some bodies had decomposed and stood no chance of being recognised.

"Things are in a mess, many bodies have been eaten up by dogs, many have decomposed and many are lying buried under the debris, mud and boulders," said an official.

With people and pilgrims stranded at the Kedar valley completely evacuated Sunday, the army and other authorities involved in the rescue would Monday begin to focus on people still caught up in Badrinath and Harsil, officials said.

Officials told IANS that the death toll and trail of devastation would now become more harrowing as rescuers spend their energy on fishing out the dead from the Kedar valley and the nearby areas.

"Dozens of villages, several vehicle parking lots where cars were parked with the drivers inside have been washed away in the torrential rains...there must be hundreds missing from there," the official said.

A day after Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna feared that 1,000 people might have been killed in the calamity, the state's Disaster Management Minister Yashpal Arya put the death toll at "at least 5,000".

Interacting with reporters at the Jolly Grant airport in the state capital, Arya said: "At least 5,000 people must have been killed in the deluge, we cannot say with surety but the number can go even higher."

People returning to safety from the rain ravaged areas put the number of dead at "many thousands (with) many (who) died of cold, illness, lack of food and water".

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DNA of unidentified Uttarakhand bodies being preserved

Washington, June 24 (ANI): Scientists have made a medical breakthrough which may help bring new insights on how genes are activated.

Roughly 3 metres of DNA is tightly folded into the nucleus of every cell in our body. This folding allows some genes to be 'expressed', or activated, while excluding others.

Dr Tim Mercer and Professor John Mattick from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Professor John Stamatoyannopoulos from Seattle's University of Washington analysed the genome's 3D structure, at high resolution.

Genes are made up of 'exons' and 'introns' - the former being the sequences that code for protein and are expressed, and the latter being stretches of noncoding DNA in-between.

As the genes are copied, or 'transcribed', from DNA into RNA, the intron sequences are cut or 'spliced' out and the remaining exons are strung together to form a sequence that encodes a protein. Depending on which exons are strung together, the same gene can generate different proteins.

Using vast amounts of data from the ENCODE project, Dr Tim Mercer and colleagues have inferred the folding of the genome, finding that even within a gene, selected exons are easily exposed.

Mercer said that imagine a long and immensely convoluted grape vine, its twisted branches presenting some grapes to be plucked easily, while concealing others beyond reach.

He said that at the same time, imagine a lazy fruit picker only picking the grapes within easy reach, asserting the same principle applies in the genome. Specific genes and even specific exons, are placed within easy reach by folding.

Mercer asserted that their study has provides the first indication that the three-dimensional structure of the genome can influence the splicing of genes.

He added that they can infer that the genome is folded in such a way that the promoter region - the sequence that initiates transcription of a gene - is located alongside exons, and they are all presented to transcription machinery.

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DNA folding influences genes activation

The Bensalem Police Department, Bucks County's largest, has been collecting DNA from suspects who voluntarily provide it since 2010. The department has amassed some 3,000 individual profiles, Public Safety Director Fred Harran said. So far, it has led to the arrests of more than 100 people, many for lower-level crimes such as burglary.

The database and others like it across the country are designed to catch criminals who often fly under the radar of national and state DNA collections, which contain the genetic material of more hardened felons and sex offenders.

"This is another tool in the arsenal to fight crime," Harran said. "Our program is a voluntary program. And people give up their DNA."

The department is one of at least nine local law enforcement agencies in the United States with such a database. That number is expected to grow, given the Supreme Court's ruling this month that police can collect DNA from people arrested for serious crimes.

The court decision does not explicitly address databases composed of voluntary DNA samples, such as the one in Bensalem. But legal experts believe the ruling approves the use of DNA by police to identify suspects and others in the same way fingerprints have been used for decades.

"By adopting that rationale, it's only going to encourage local police departments to continue to be aggressive with their local databanks," said Stephen Mercer, chief attorney in the forensics division of the Maryland Public Defender's Office, which was involved in the Supreme Court case.

These databases, unlike those on the state and national level, are unregulated, raising concerns about how local departments collect and use DNA.

Mercer said police often ask suspects for a swab without explaining that it will be stored in a database indefinitely or that they have the right to have the material destroyed later because it was given voluntarily.

"How's someone going to ask to have it removed if they don't know it's there to begin with?" Mercer said. "And that's what we're finding with these local databases."

Harran, Bensalem's public safety director, said about 90 percent of people asked have consented to a swab. Each person signs a form that explicitly states the DNA will be used for criminal investigations, he said.

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Bensalem DNA database helps nab low-level criminals

A Virginia serial rapist who eluded convictions from 1981 until 1986 has been linked by DNA to three more attacks and the wrongful conviction of at least one innocent man.

Norman Bruce Derr beat charges in seven assaults in Henrico and Spotsylvania counties, all committed by a knife-wielding assailant wearing a nylon stocking mask. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1989 for a similar rape in Fredericksburg.

Now, DNA implicates Derr in a 1986 rape in Waldorf, Md., years after an innocent man was convicted, and also appears to support the innocence claim of Michael McAlister, convicted of a 1986 attempted rape in Richmond.

The Waldorf and Richmond attacks were 17 days apart. Each was committed by a man armed with a knife, disguised with a nylon stocking mask and wearing a red plaid shirt.

While DNA now links Derr to the Waldorf case, no evidence has been found to test in the Richmond case that McAlister has long blamed on Derr.

Nevertheless, for at least a decade, the lead investigator in the attempted rape in Richmond has believed McAlister is innocent, even without DNA proof.

Thats my only regret in my 38 years, said retired Detective C.M. Martin.

On Feb. 23, 1986, a man in a red plaid shirt tried to rape a 22-year-old woman in an apartment laundry room in South Richmond. When McAlister was charged, Martin did not know Henrico police had earlier spotted Derr at the same apartments.

Martin now believes the Richmond victim mistakenly identified McAlister because he agreed to wear a red plaid shirt when posing for his mug shot the same kind of shirt as the assailants.

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DNA ties rapist to more attacks