'Bloodprints’ might identify individuals

Press, 28 August 1984, Page 18

'Bloodprints’ might identify individuals

PA Wellington Scientists may be able to use “bloodprints” to identify individuals in paternity and criminal cases in the next decade. The medical director of the Auckland Blood Transfusion Centre, Dr Graham Woodfield, has told a forensic science society symposium in Wellington that blood could probably be attributed to an individual now but it would require a time-consuming and wide

range of tests. Scientists at present just deal with exclusion of probability but Dr Woodfield said advances being made overseas, such as a new technique identifying a person’s individual chromosomes, were likely to make “bloodprints” more practical. New Zealand’s mixedrace population makes it difficult for scientists to calculate high probability but Dr Woodfield said sufficient genetic data in the

many blood systems from various ethnic groups was now available' and was being computerised. This would lead to a system which incorporated the most up-to-date aspects on parentage testing while soundly based on New Zealand blood group genetic information, he said. Parentage tests were a big problem because of the high number, about 22 per cent, of babies bom outside marriage.