We are proud to be partnering with Kings College London to help progress research in the development of a DNA database for canine identification.
The research is providing a unique insight into breed identification and population frequency genetics, improving our ability to identify dogs from a non-invasive sample of their DNA (which we can extract from their saliva).
Jo Millington has been providing supervisory support to Federica Giangasparo during her analysis of short tandem repeat markers and full mitochondrial genome sequencing of over 1000 dogs.
Anyone that knows Jo Millington will be familiar with her ground-breaking work in animal forensics and her drive to apply our experience as human medico-legal practitioners to animal crime.
We asked Jo about the research:
"This is an exciting partnership for Millington Hingley. It brings together experts in animal diagnostics and research from the Royal Veterinary College, Canine DNA Profiling Group (CaDNAP) and University of Innsbruck with specialists who have worked within the forensic sphere of the UK human Criminal Justice system for many years and we are proud to support it.
One of my key objectives is to help investigators optimise scientific evidence that could form the missing link in criminal investigations. This includes crimes that involve animals. This research provides an opportunity to produce a canine population database that works very much like the national (human) databases that are in place across the world.
Fede has worked incredibly hard on this research and I can't wait to read her final PhD thesis."
Read more about the research here.