dnatrack is a freely accessible, web-based literature database designed to support evidence evaluation in criminal proceedings involving DNA traces.
While DNA evidence is often treated as objective proof of involvement in a crime, the presence of someone's DNA at a scene or on an object does not, by itself, establish how it got there. DNA can be transferred through everyday social contact, persist on surfaces for extended periods, or arrive via secondary or tertiary transfer pathways entirely unrelated to a criminal act. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for fair and scientifically sound evidence evaluation.
This platform provides structured access to the published body of research on DNA transfer, persistence, prevalence and recovery. Originally developed in a Forensic Molecular Genetics research project by Univ.-Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Cornelius Courts and Dr. rer. nat. Annica Gosch[1], dnatrack transforms this curated scientific knowledge into a tool that defense attorneys, courts, prosecutors, scientists and forensic experts can use to peruse existing knowledge.
We do not claim that dnatrack contains a complete coverage of all publications available on DNA transfer. Publications might have escaped our attention or not have been considered relevant according to our criteria and might still be relevant to consider in a transfer scenario we did not think of.
Third parties may freely use and contribute to dnatrack as long as they correctly and fully cite its source and authors. Also, by using it third parties automatically agree that the authors are not responsible for the acts or omissions of third parties using it. Neither are they liable under any circumstances for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential or other damages related to any person, service, procedure or other instances that may arise or in part be caused by using dnatrack.
For a detailed description of how dnatrack was assembled, please refer to appendix A of[1].
We would like to point out, that dnatrack is limited in that the result section does only provide an overview of the general range of data obtained and relevant trends identified but is neither intended nor does it provide for the extraction of data or probabilities. Kokshoorn et al.[2] envisioned for a ‘knowledge base’ to not only contain a database for the collection of DNA transfer studies, but also turn this database into a tool for collecting the obtained data, grouping it according to relevant transfer scenarios and extracting the respective averages. In our opinion and based on our experiences with the generation of dnatrack such a tool cannot be built based on the available DNA transfer studies, mainly due to the large incongruity of how study design and results are reported (cf.[1] section 4.4). Additionally, we believe that a forensic expert can rely on dnatrack for the identification of studies relating to his question, but it remains his/her responsibility to peruse the studies and judge their reliability and relevance to his investigation by him/herself and not to uncritically extract the generated data.
A guide on how to effectively navigate and utilize the dnatrackplatform.
An overview of the scientific methods and criteria used to curate and structure the database.
An overview of the scientific methods and criteria used to curate and structure the database.
An overview of the scientific methods and criteria used to curate and structure the database.