Canadians first in DNA evidence use, world-famous forensic geneticist says
World-famous forensic genetecist Dr. George Carmody gives a lecture to Nipissing University students Thursday night. Photo by Bill Tremblay, Special to BayToday.ca.
World-famous forensic genetecist Dr. George Carmody gives a lecture to Nipissing University students Thursday night. Photo by Bill Tremblay, Special to BayToday.ca.
Canadians beat the Americans in the use of DNA evidence, one of the world's top forensic geneticists told Nipissing University students Thursday night.
Dr. George Carmody was at the university to give a lecture to criminal justice students about using DNA for human identification.
Famous cases Carmody, a Canadian, is vice-chair of the RCMP’s National DNA Databank Advisory Committee, and a member of the New York State DNA Sub-commission. He also tutors forensic analysts at the FBI Academy, Scotland Yard and the chief medical examiner’s office in New York City.
His expertise has been used in many famous cases, such as the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, the Swiss Air Flight 111 crash, and the Picton Pig farm.
During his Nipissing lecture. Carmody explained the history of DNA being used to fight crime.
“In 1988 both the RCMP and the FBI started (using DNA),” Carmody said, adding the first case using DNA as evidence was in 1989.
“This is a case where the RCMP beat out the FBI,” Carmody said.
Short recess The case involved an elderly woman who had been sexually assaulted in her apartment in Ottawa. Carmody explained that the police took a sample of the suspect's DNA.
“The DNA matched,” Carmody said.
After the prosecution presented the evidence in court, the defense asked for a short recess.
“They wanted to change their plea to guilty,” Carmody said.
Real minority He explained how DNA can be used to identify a person.
“A good percentage of our genome doesn’t make up who we are,” Carmody said.
He explained that there are only three different types of genomes, which is the full DNA sequence of an organism, for all of humanity.
Only two per cent of our genome makes us different from others, Carmody said.
“A real minority of that DNA makes up our genome,” Carmody said.