We are very excited to welcome you on to our Forensic Science course in September. We hope that you are excited to be joining our forensic team too!

We have put together some resources to whet your appetite about the course and to get you looking at some interesting topics and questions that you will be encountering during your forensic career.

To get started, watch the TED/Think Digital talk given by a lead researcher in the area. There are also one or two articles for you to follow up. Then the world (or in this case the internet) is your oyster – explore and see what new forensic information you can find. We will revisit these topics during your degree and you will learn the essential underpinning science as well as the cutting-edge developments in each topic that will make you a great forensic scientist.

Solving a (very) cold case

A DNA profiling system developed by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester was first used in a criminal case in 1987. Since then DNA has become a common evidence type and a number of different DNA profiling systems are now used including mitochondrial DNA and the Y-chromosome. Here is an example of a (very) cold case which was solved using mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA analysis - King Richard III.

 TED talk by Prof. Turi King (University of Leicester) - "King Richard III: Solving a 500-year-old cold case"
https://www.ted.com/talks/dr_turi_king_king_richard_iii_solving_a_500_year_old_cold_case (Links to an external site.)

Here are some articles about the use of DNA profiling:

 The first criminal case to use DNA profiling (Sir Alec Jeffries):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/07/killer-dna-evidence-genetic-profiling-criminal-investigation (Links to an external site.)

 DNA profiling is also being used in wildlife forensics: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/08/rhinoceros-dna-database-successful-in-aiding-poaching-prosecutions (Links to an external site.)