There have been taboos in science about studying race and genetics and race and intelligence and genetics and behaviour, among many other “forbidden subjects”. It has been particularly incorrect to study race and intelligence, even though it might seem obvious that race (as a clustering of visible physical attributes) is genetic and that intelligence is partially hereditary and must also have a large genetic component. It has not been politically correct to study the link between genetics and behaviour especially if the genetics can then be linked to race. Studies concerning the impact of crime and DNA have been deemed taboo.
image IUPUI
But some of these taboos are breaking down. A new tool can accurately use DNA markers to predict skin colour, eye colour and hair colour.
Lakshmi Chaitanya, Krystal Breslin, Sofia Zuñiga, Laura Wirken, Ewelina Pośpiech, Magdalena Kukla-Bartoszek, Titia Sijen, Peter de Knijff, Fan Liu, Wojciech Branicki, Manfred Kayser, Susan Walsh. The HIrisPlex-S system for eye, hair and skin colour prediction from DNA: Introduction and forensic developmental validation. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 2018; 35: 123 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigen.2018.04.004
Science Daily writes:
An international team, led by scientists from the School of Science at IUPUI and Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam in the Netherlands, has developed a novel tool to accurately predict eye, hair and skin color from human biological material — even a small DNA sample — left, for example, at a crime scene or obtained from archeological remains. This all-in-one pigmentation profile tool provides a physical description of the person in a way that has not previously been possible by generating all three pigment traits together using a freely available webtool.
The tool is designed to be used when standard forensic DNA profiling is not helpful because no reference DNA exists against which to compare the evidence sample.
The HIrisPlex-S DNA test system is capable of simultaneously predicting eye, hair and skin color phenotypes from DNA. Users, such as law enforcement officials or anthropologists, can enter relevant data using a laboratory DNA analysis tool, and the webtool will predict the pigment profile of the DNA donor.
“We have previously provided law enforcement and anthropologists with DNA tools for eye color and for combined eye and hair color, but skin color has been more difficult,” said forensic geneticist Susan Walsh from IUPUI, who co-directed the study. “Importantly, we are directly predicting actual skin color divided into five subtypes — very pale, pale, intermediate, dark and dark to black — using DNA markers from the genes that determine an individual’s skin coloration. This is not the same as identifying genetic ancestry. You might say it’s more similar to specifying a paint color in a hardware store rather than denoting race or ethnicity.
“If anyone asks an eyewitness what they saw, the majority of time they mention hair color and skin color. What we are doing is using genetics to take an objective look at what they saw,” Walsh said.
The innovative high-probability and high-accuracy complete pigmentation profile webtool is available online without charge.
The study, “HIrisPlex-S System for Eye, Hair and Skin Colour Prediction from DNA: Introduction and Forensic Developmental Validation,” is published in the peer-reviewed journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.
“With our new HIrisPlex-S system, for the first time, forensic geneticists and genetic anthropologists are able to simultaneously generate eye, hair and skin color information from a DNA sample, including DNA of the low quality and quantity often found in forensic casework and anthropological studies,” said Manfred Kayser of Erasmus MC, co-leader of the study.
Tags: DNA, skin colour
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