For both legal and psychological reasons, positive identification of a decedent is desired and often may be accomplished by means of the traditional scientific methods of comparative dental radiography, friction ridge analysis(fingcrprinting matching), and/or thorough osteological examinalion(including comparative radiography). However, because of extensive putrefaction of soft tissues, dearticulation and destruction of key skeletal landmarks, and unavailable pre-mortem records, these traditional methods may not be useful. Recent development in the DNA analysis and their application to forensic identification of biologic evidences have revolutionized the possibility of identifying human remains. The use of human bone and teeth as sources for DNA typing is relatively recent in forensic science. A common problem that plagues this type of analysis is the preservation of the DNA.
This paper describes a method for the successful extraction of DNA from hard tissues which can then - be typed potentially by PCR-based procedure, and a statistical concept for evaluating the weight of DNA evidences which have revealed via DNA typing.
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