Florida International University has been awarded $349,130 from the Office of Justice Programs of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”). The grant will support the continued development of a faster and more accurate method of processing DNA evidence for rape prosecutions using Pressure BioSciences’ patented Pressure Cycling Technology (“PCT”) Platform.
Dr. Bruce R. McCord, Associate Director of FIU’s International Forensic Research Institute (“IFRI”) and principal investigator of the study, believes the new testing method has the potential to greatly improve the processing of sexual assault evidence, thus helping to reduce thecurrent national backlog of more than 400,000 completed rape kits, sitting in storage and waiting processing and analysis.
The DOJ-supported study, entitled “Rapid and selective extraction of DNA from rape kits and other forensic evidence using pressure cycling technology,” is expected to help develop and validate a new DNA extraction technique based on PBI’s PCT platform technology. Dr. McCord and other forensic researchers at FIU’s IFRI, note that the PBI pressure system (“Barocycler”) provides an exciting new technology that is capable of extracting DNA from rape kits and other samples without the need to first separate sperm from female epithelial cells, a complex and time-consuming procedure.
FIU’s Dr. McCord, a noted expert in forensic DNA research, describes PBI’s PCT technology as having great potential to simplify the complex processing of rape kits. Currently in most forensic labs, the analyst is required to perform a series of tedious manual extractions in order to separate male and female cells collected on swabs from the victim. With PBI’s PCT System, there is no need to remove female cells prior to analysis. “The PCT technology permits the user to selectively burst open and extract DNA from the perpetrator’s sperm cells, while leaving the victim’s own cells in the swab sample unbroken. This unique capability offers great hope for significantly improving rape kit analysis.”