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Natural Traces in forensic investigations - how the analysis of non-human evidence can solve crime

Description du projet

Combler une lacune dans la formation pratique en médecine légale

Dans le monde de la médecine légale, chaque scène de crime raconte une histoire unique, qui inclut souvent la présence subtile de traces biologiques non humaines. Les poils d’animaux domestiques, le pollen, les organismes du sol et l’ADN environnemental ne sont que quelques exemples de ces indices insaisissables. Cependant, dans l’UE, l’expertise nécessaire pour analyser et utiliser efficacement ces traces naturelles fait défaut au niveau du troisième cycle. Avec le soutien du programme Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie, le projet Natural Traces comblera cette lacune dans l’enseignement des sciences médico-légales. Il permettra à dix doctorants de bénéficier d’une formation complète en médecine légale pratique. La formation, animée par des partenaires universitaires et non universitaires, des écoles de police et des laboratoires, sera axée sur l’intégration des preuves biologiques dans un cadre bayésien.

Objectif

Literally any crime scene contains animal, plant, soil, microbial or environmental traces. Examples include pet hairs or saliva, pollen and algae, soil and soil organisms like bacteria or nematodes, fungal spores, insects, and environmental traces in the form of environmental DNA of any origin. Such biological traces can be found mainly on living people (suspects, victims), on objects like cars or weapons, and on bodies not just on the surface but also in their surroundings like single or mass graves, or an aquatic environment.
In the EU, there is a lack of training opportunities in applied topics of forensic science at postgraduate level, such as the qualitative and quantitative analysis of specifically such non-human biological traces. While many EU countries have forensic laboratories that also such traces, a much broader, integrated knowledge base is needed, built on close cooperation between basic research in academia and analysis and application in casework by forensic specialists. Natural Traces aims to optimise the procedures for taking and analysing non-human traces in order to meet the ever-increasing demands for identifying suspects and victims and to link traces to different places, times or courses of action. The results based on this need a statistical robustness that will also hold up in the courtroom under cross-examination.
The proposal aims for 10 PhD students with a background in life sciences. They will build their knowledge and experience in practical forensics in training schools provided by academic, non-academic partners, and police academies or laboratories. The training embeds biological evidence in a Bayesian framework, making it universally comparable with all other forms of evidence, by applying novel probabilistic approaches to extract forensic useful information from metadata. It is truly cross-sectoral, with secondments at end-users of the training (e.g. police forces) and joint supervision by PIs from different countries.

Coordinateur

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Contribution nette de l'UE
€ 260 539,20
Adresse
THEODOR W ADORNO PLATZ 1
60323 Frankfurt Am Main
Allemagne

Voir sur la carte

Région
Hessen Darmstadt Frankfurt am Main, Kreisfreie Stadt
Type d’activité
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Liens
Coût total
Aucune donnée

Participants (9)

Partenaires (14)