Recent activities in the United States involving the National Commission on Forensic Science and the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science*

Abstract

In 2013, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an interagency initiative to strengthen forensic science: the establishment of a National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS) and development of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC). The role of NCFS is to advise DOJ on matters of policy. NCFS exists in two-year renewable terms and has held 11 meetings in Washington, DC between February 2014 and September 2016. More than 30 work products have been approved following discussion and development within seven NCFS subcommittees that have been informed by public comment. The role of OSAC is to improve forensic practices by facilitating the development and promulgation of technically sound consensus-based documentary standards that can be used by accrediting bodies in future audits of forensic laboratories. OSAC is a NIST-organised effort and it is intended to be ongoing. Since the first in-person meeting in January 2015, OSAC has grown to involve a Forensic Science Standards Board, three resource committees, five SACs, 25 subcommittees, and >200 task groups involving hundreds of people from the forensic science and research communities. This article reviews recent activities, challenges and progress of NCFS and OSAC.     

Corrigendum to “Linkage disequilibrium analysis of D12S391 and vWA in U.S. population and paternity samples” [Forensic Sci. Int.: Genet. (in press), doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2010.09.003]

Recently, the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes voted to adopt five additional STR loci (D12S391, D1S1656, D2S441, D10S1248, and D22S1045) to their existing European Standard Set of seven STRs (TH01, vWA, FGA, D8S1179, D18S51, D21S11, and D3S1358). The D12S391 and vWA loci are located 6.3 megabases (Mb) apart on chromosome 12. Ideally for use in forensic analyses, genetic markers on the same chromosome should be more than 50 Mb in physical distance in order to ensure full recombination and thus independent inheritance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if the closely located D12S391 and vWA loci are independent and, consequently, if these loci can be included in the product rule calculation for forensic and kinship analyses. Departures from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and linkage disequilibrium between the D12S391 and vWA loci were tested using n = 654 unrelated U.S. African American, Caucasian, and Hispanic samples, and n = 764 father/son paternity samples. In the unrelated U.S. population samples, no significant departures from HWE were detected for D12S391 or vWA. No significant evidence of linkage disequilibrium was observed between the loci in the population samples. However, significant linkage disequilibrium was detected in U.S. African American, Caucasian, and Asian father/son samples with phased genotypes. No significant linkage disequilibrium was detected for U.S. Hispanic paternity samples. The use of phased father/son pairs allowed for robust detection of linkage disequilibrium between D12S391 and vWA. In unrelated population samples, linkage disequilibrium is present but more difficult to detect due to the large number of possible haplotype combinations and unknown allelic phase. For casework analyses that involve unrelated or related individuals, the single-locus genotype probabilities for D12S391 and vWA should not be multiplied to determine the match probability of an autosomal STR profile. Since the D12S391 and vWA loci are not independent, it is recommended that the observed combination of alleles at D12S391 and vWA should be treated as a non-independent diplotype for profile probability calculations. The observed haplotype frequencies for U.S. African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian populations are provided for match probability calculations.