Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Evaluation Of Direct-To-Amplification Cell Lysis Techniques For Forensically Relevant Non-Sperm Cells, Rhea Arya

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

While efforts have been made to reduce the pervasive backlog of sexual assault evidence collection kits, the actual laboratory process remains very time-consuming due to the requirement of a differential lysis step before DNA purification, as well as intricate mixture analysis towards the end of the DNA workflow. Previous work in the Dawson Green laboratory at VCU has developed alternative solutions for differential extractions with sexual assault samples using both an in-tube and microdevice assay. Prior work led to the identification of an alternative sperm lysis method – alkaline lysis using 1M NaOH. However, the current lysis method used for …

Evaluation Of Cell Lysis Techniques For Direct Amplification Of Sexual Assault Samples, Sarah Schellhammer

Master of Science in Forensic Science Directed Research Projects

Sexual assault is one of the most common crimes committed today with a delay in sample processing, resulting in the “rape kit backlog”. The traditional method to extract DNA from these samples containing both male and female DNA is a differential extraction; taking hours to process. This study examined a variety of different cell lysis techniques to develop a method which can consistently generate high-quality profiles at a fast rate and with low volumes when compared to the currently used method in our laboratory.

Six lysis methods, in addition to the currently used forensicGEM™ Sperm kit, were performed on …