Apparently, when Coroner Miller announced the first of four victim identifications on Friday, September 21, he made several unintentional, but significant gaffs. As reported the next day in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Miller said he and his team had made these identifications "mostly through dental records and fingerprints. We're also using radiology (records), and we can find surgical work such as hip replacements," adding, that "the first identification came two days ago, when a tooth was matched to dental records."
While my experience in such forensic matters is limited to skimming police-procedural novels like those of J. Carson Black, I don't think "a tooth" can be matched with someone's "dental records" in the same way that Mitochondrial DNA can be extracted from a tooth for laboratory analysis. To make a comparison with dental records, I should think you'd need a substantially intact skull, or least a major portion of the jaw bone that would allow for multiple points of comparison.
But forsooth, a single tooth, given the "extremely fragmented" nature of the victim remains as described by Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat, a professor of Forensic and Biological Anthropology, and DMORT member involved with the Flight 93 recovery; and Paul Sledzik, M.S., curator of the anatomical collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., and the head of the DMORT team in Shanksville (over Coroner Miller, whose credentials extend to a "certification from the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science,") I'm surprised that they would go along with his public description of their joint work.
What use is a tool like radiology, which "can find [hidden] surgical work such as hip replacements," when that evidence is already exposed, or certainly open to autopsy? Fingerprint analysis is especially Elliot Ness in this regard, as skin burns in a jet crash just as bones defragment---not forgetting that private citizens traveling on airplanes, unlike criminal or "sworn-in" networks, often go an entire lifetime without ever having their fingerprints being on record.
The goal of this forensic work should have been less about making an identification from a discrete tissue sample, thereby "proving" the existence of an individual with the first conclusive match, as much as it was about honoring the supposed remains of innocent victims whose body parts had been mixed up with the remains of people who'd perpetrated the violence against them; in which case, after first setting a standard for how minute attempts at clarifying the remains should go, announcing a success would come at the end of the process, not at the beginning.
We assume that regularly scheduled flights of commercial airliners carry people in them---even if only at a 30 percent occupancy like the four flights on September 11th averaged. The FBI makes an interesting point when it says they are "not confident enough of the [hijacker's] identities to have death certificates issued for them...the FBI indicated that they might have used false identifications to get their airline tickets." Might not the same be said for any other passengers who might travel under a pseudonym, or a nom de zephyr? And what exactly is the abuse of a death certificate made out in the name of an alias again?
During his Friday, Sept. 21, 2001 announcement, Four Flight 93 victims identified, Coroner Miller said "the attempt to identify the rest -- a process that involves using DNA testing to confirm the conclusions -- could go on for a year," warning, "I can't guarantee identifying remains of all the passengers, but I'm hopeful." He said those remains "will be transferred to the Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del., part of a process in which the FBI has mandated DNA matches as final confirmation."
Perhaps Miller's mention of the Dover Mortuary had some strange motivational effect on the effort underway. That following Monday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, the Coroner identifies seven more victims of Flight 93 crash, which had been "positively identified over the weekend, bringing the number of identified bodies to 11." The report continued:
The coroner's office was able to identify victims with help from FBI fingerprint experts, but Miller said they did not release identifications until investigators were all "comfortable" with the identity of each victim. Four bodies had been identified as of Friday. Miller would not name the victims, or say whether they were crew or passengers, saying his "No. 1 priority" was protecting the privacy of families.
"The identifications up to now were not [based on] DNA," said Miller. "The method now will be [to use] DNA [testing]."
The next day the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the FBI closing up shop in Shanksville, in the FBI ends site work, says no bomb used, and with less than a fortnight having elapsed since the attacks, the bureau made use of the following logic:
Since it had no more use for it, the FBI turned the airliner debris -- but not the data and voice recorders -- over to United Airlines yesterday. Asked what United will do with the debris, airline spokeswoman Whitney Staley said, "I don't think a decision has been made ... but we're not commenting."That same day, the Post-Gazette published a second feature puff-piece called Flight 93 victim identification long, arduous, by Cindi Lash, about DNA testing of remains, which for the first time didn't rely solely on Miller as the mouthpiece, bringing forward two men who hitherto had remained in the shadow of publicity---Dr. Dirkmaat and Mr. Sledzik. Lash doesn't beat around the bush, but instead gets to her point in the second paragraph:
Those items will end up in Rockville, Md., at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's DNA-identification laboratory -- arguably the best in the nation at analyzing and matching DNA samples. Experts will attempt to match genetic material left behind on those items with DNA found in human remains recovered at the crash scene.
"Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del.," is rather specific to excuse as Miller's slip of the tongue. Dover is where the victim's remains from the Pentagon attack were being sent by the FBI investigators, even over the written objection of the Virginia medical examiner, who in a letter said she was ready, willing and able to execute her lawfully mandated duty. For Lash to write on the day the FBI announced their leave-taking, presumably taking along the DMORT force with them, carries a noticeable point, especially since this ground had already been covered by her colleagues.
"Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller said only parts of two bodies were sent to government pathologists for DNA testing, and those remains were returned for burial at the crash site along with other unknown remains." Feb 29, 2012, CNHI News, Coroner disputes disposal of partial 9/11 remains,
September 22, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Four Flight 93 victims identified, By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, Saturday,
When in the September 20, 2001, Somerset County, Daily American, Coroner works with families to identify victims of Flight 93, by Sandra Lepley, Miller said that all of the DNA identification process was "done at a government lab in Washington D.C."
Even Bob Shaler, chief of forensic biology in the New York City Medical Examiners office, sent 13,000 bone samples from World Trade Center victims out to be processed by Bode Technology Group in Springfield, Va., according to a September 11, 2002, Associated Press article, Trade Center DNA identification effort creates new forensic tools,
While a August 29, 2002, Orchid BioSciences, Inc. press release, Orchid to Identify World Trade Center Victims Using SNP Technology, "announced that it has been awarded a contract by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City to help identify remains of victims of the World Trade Center disaster."
But there's the September 22, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Four Flight 93 victims identified, By Tom Gibb, which states in sure explicitness that the FBI "mandated" all remains be sent to Dover:
September 22, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Four Flight 93 victims identified, By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, Saturday,
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. -- Investigators have identified remains of four of the 44 people aboard Flight 93, the jetliner that crashed here 11 days ago, the Somerset County coroner said yesterday.
But the attempt to identify the rest -- a process that involves using DNA testing to confirm the conclusions -- could go on for a year, Coroner Wallace Miller said.
Just the search for remains, across fields and woodlands in a little-populated swath of mountains, could continue for months before Miller decides to call it off.
"It's not going to happen until I'm satisfied that we've done everything we possibly can," he said.
Miller reported the first identifications yesterday as investigators continued to dig through the crash site seven miles northeast of Somerset, shoveling out mounds of earth, then sifting through that soil for remains, personal belongings and bits of the Boeing 757.
"I can't guarantee identifying remains of all the passengers," Miller said, "but I'm hopeful."
Miller would not name the people identified beyond saying that all the people were passengers or crew, not hijackers. He said that the first identification came two days ago, when a tooth was matched to dental records.
"The identifications we have made for now have been mostly through dental records and fingerprints. We're also using radiology (records), and we can find surgical work such as hip replacements," he said.
For now, the remains are being taken to a temporary morgue set up by investigators at Friedens, five miles from the crash site. From there, they will be transferred to the Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del., part of a process in which the FBI has mandated DNA matches as final confirmation.
Victims' families have been asked to provide items such as the victims' hairbrushes and toothbrushes, so that medical investigators can glean samples from which to draw final DNA matches. The DNA matches, in turn, probably will be the link that investigators use to identify most of the remains, Miller said.
But the FBI's demand for DNA links could serve another purpose, offering one clue for identifying the hijackers from the Sept. 11 morning of terror, since investigators have suggested that the air pirates' real identities lie buried under layers of fake IDs.
Miller said that the first identifications brought a measure of solace to the families involved.
When remains are accumulated, they will be turned over to families for interment, a process for which no timetable has been set.
If all goes according to a tentative schedule, the FBI -- overseeing recovery workers clad in white suits to protect them from jet fuel and possible biological hazards posed by human remains -- could turn the site over to Miller.
That would mean the pullout of the 100-member federal Disaster Mortuary Operations Response Team, which has aided in handling remains.
But Miller's search for remains could continue for months -- albeit becoming problematic if winter arrives in these highlands like it did eight years ago, with a 30-inch snowfall on Oct. 25.
Already, it is a painstaking operation, since remains were small and scattered by the impact.
"I'm not naive enough to believe we'll get everything, but we'll try to get everything we possibly can," Miller said. " ...When you have a plane traveling at 500 mph, I think you understand what the scenario is."
Once searchers have found the last remains they plausibly can find, Miller said, he and his staff could have thousands of specimens.
Yesterday, investigators drained a two-acre pond about 1,000 feet from the crater where the jetliner slammed into the ground, just another step in hunting airliner parts, personal belongings and remains, Miller said.
Officially, the land is an FBI crime scene. When the FBI leaves, it becomes a coroner's crime scene.
But when he surrenders control of the ground, Miller -- who considers himself a guardian of both the victims' dignity and the place where they died -- said he wants the land preserved, possibly as a government-administered memorial.
"I am aware of the historical significance of this spot," he said.
September 11, 2002, boston.com / Associated Press, Trade Center DNA identification effort creates new forensic tools, By Malcolm Ritter, [Cached copy at archive.org]
"Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller said only parts of two bodies were sent to government pathologists for DNA testing, and those remains were returned for burial at the crash site along with other unknown remains." Feb 29, 2012, CNHI News, Coroner disputes disposal of partial 9/11 remains,
September 25, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Flight 93 victim identification long, arduous, By Cindi Lash, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, Tuesday,
A licked stamp. A used razor blade. A forgotten toothbrush left out of its owner's suitcase.
All over the world, these and other equally mundane items are being sought and retrieved from the desks, dressers and medicine cabinets of the people who were aboard United Flight 93 when it crashed into a Somerset County hilltop two weeks ago.
Those items will end up in Rockville, Md., at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's DNA-identification laboratory -- arguably the best in the nation at analyzing and matching DNA samples. Experts will attempt to match genetic material left behind on those items with DNA found in human remains recovered at the crash scene.
DNA comparison is just one of several techniques to be used by members of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, which is charged with recovering and identifying the remains of Flight 93's passengers, crew members and hijackers. All 44 people who were on board died in the crash.
The team that has been at work in Stonycreek, Somerset County, is one of several that have been activated to assist with identification of thousands of people who died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Other teams have been sent to identify people who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The teams were created in 1996 under the federal Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act. That legislation was passed in response to calls for better, more coordinated assistance from families whose loved ones died in the September 1994 crash of USAir Flight 427 in Hopewell and other airline crashes.
The teams are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' national disaster medical system. They are assigned to 10 regions around the country to identify victims after incidents with mass casualties.Teams include forensic pathologists, anthropologists, dentists, fingerprint analysts, radiologists, X-ray technicians and others with scientific skills that can be used to identify remains. Members are private citizens who have offered their skills and who are activated and paid by the federal government to assist local coroners or medical examiners when disasters occur, said Paul Sledzik, who headed the team in Stonycreek.
A forensic anthropologist, Sledzik is a world-renowned curator at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.
A specialist in identifying skeletal remains, Sledzik, 40, has worked as an expert in numerous murder cases. He has helped to identify bodies of soldiers killed during the Persian Gulf War as well as passengers who died in the USAir Flight 427 crash.
In Stonycreek, Sledzik supervised a team of about 65 DMORT workers from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.They are expected to complete their work at the site this week.Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller retains authority over the recovery process and will sign all death certificates, Sledzik said, but DMORT workers have been helping Miller with identification processes.
"Local jurisdictions often don't have a mass disaster plan," he said. "We don't come in and take over, but we augment what the local coroner has set up. We provide whatever support is needed by local officials."
Some DMORT members worked alongside FBI agents and state troopers at the site to recover tissue, bone and dental remains.
Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat, a DMORT member and forensic anthropologist from Mercyhurst College in Erie, said the remains were "extremely fragmented" after the crash, in which the airliner hit the ground at hundreds of miles per hour.
Still, Dirkmaat said, DMORT workers were attempting "to document every piece of tissue," no matter how small. By walking or crawling over the crash site and by sifting dirt through mesh screens, DMORT workers hoped to recover tiny samples that, despite their size, could be analyzed and identified.Once the remains were recovered, they were sent to a temporary morgue four miles away in a Pennsylvania National Guard armory in Friedens. There, more DMORT workers analyzed the remains utilizing equipment shipped from Dallas.
Fingerprint specialists examined tissue and dentists examined teeth, fillings or wire from dental braces that had been collected for comparison with X-rays and other records obtained from relatives of the crash victims. Anthropologists and X-ray technicians have done the same with bones, looking for evidence of healed fractures, past injuries or surgeries.
If remains still couldn't be identified, DMORT workers sent samples to the DNA laboratory in Maryland to be matched with the genetic markers of those who died.
That can be done by obtaining blood samples from relatives or by obtaining DNA from strands of hair left in combs, from saliva on toothbrushes or stamps, even from nearly invisible bits of blood or tissue or a razor blade.
Sledzik said it was too early to know how successful that identification process will be or whether they will be able to identify the hijackers.
"We know that it is very important to the families to be able to make those identifications and we will stick with it until we've exhausted all processes," he said.
"It's heart-rending work, absolutely," he said. "But this [DMORT operation] has a distinct difference to it. Given what's been going on nationally, people here are extremely focused on completing the work here. They feel they can provide a service to these families and to their country and they are here to do that." Staff writer James O'Toole contributed to this report.
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. -- Investigators have identified remains of four of the 44 people aboard Flight 93, the jetliner that crashed here 11 days ago, the Somerset County coroner said yesterday.But the attempt to identify the rest --a process that involves using DNA testing to confirm the conclusions -- could go on for a year, Coroner Wallace Miller said.Just the search for remains, across fields and woodlands in a little-populated swath of mountains, could continue for months before Miller decides to call it off."It's not going to happen until I'm satisfied that we've done everything we possibly can," he said.
Miller reported the first identifications yesterday [Friday, 9/21] as investigators continued to dig through the crash site seven miles northeast of Somerset, shoveling out mounds of earth, then sifting through that soil for remains, personal belongings and bits of the Boeing 757.
"I can't guarantee identifying remains of all the passengers,"Miller said, "but I'm hopeful."Miller would not name the people identified beyond saying that all the people were passengers or crew, not hijackers. He said that the first identification came two days ago, when a tooth was matched to dental records.
"The identifications we have made for now have been mostly through dental records and fingerprints. We're also using radiology (records), and we can find surgical work such as hip replacements," he said.
For now, the remains are being taken to a temporary morgue set up by investigators at Friedens, five miles from the crash site. From there, they will be transferred to the Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del., part of a process in which the FBI has mandated DNA matches as final confirmation.
Victims' families have been asked to provide items such as the victims' hairbrushes and toothbrushes, so that medical investigators can glean samples from which to draw final DNA matches. The DNA matches, in turn, probably will be the link that investigators use to identify most of the remains, Miller said.
But the FBI's demand for DNA links could serve another purpose, offering one clue for identifying the hijackers from the Sept. 11 morning of terror, since investigators have suggested that the air pirates' real identities lie buried under layers of fake IDs.
Miller said that the first identifications brought a measure of solace to the families involved.
When remains are accumulated, they will be turned over to families for interment, a process for which no timetable has been set.
If all goes according to a tentative schedule, the FBI -- overseeing recovery workers clad in white suits to protect them from jet fuel and possible biological hazards posed by human remains -- could turn the site over to Miller.
That would mean the pullout of the 100-member federal Disaster Mortuary Operations Response Team, which has aided in handling remains.
But Miller's search for remains could continue for months -- albeit becoming problematic if winter arrives in these highlands like it did eight years ago, with a 30-inch snowfall on Oct. 25.
Already, it is a painstaking operation, since remains were small and scattered by the impact.
"I'm not naive enough to believe we'll get everything, but we'll try to get everything we possibly can," Miller said. " ...When you have a plane traveling at 500 mph, I think you understand what the scenario is."
Once searchers have found the last remains they plausibly can find, Miller said, he and his staff could have thousands of specimens.
Yesterday, investigators drained a two-acre pond about 1,000 feet from the crater where the jetliner slammed into the ground, just another step in hunting airliner parts, personal belongings and remains, Miller said.
Officially, the land is an FBI crime scene. When the FBI leaves, it becomes a coroner's crime scene.
But when he surrenders control of the ground, Miller -- who considers himself a guardian of both the victims' dignity and the place where they died -- said he wants the land preserved, possibly as a government-administered memorial.
"I am aware of the historical significance of this spot," he said.
When in the September 20, 2001, Somerset County, Daily American, Coroner works with families to identify victims of Flight 93, by Sandra Lepley, Miller said that all of the DNA identification process was "done at a government lab in Washington D.C."
He [Miller] is responsible for all human remains being excavated from the crash site where United Flight 93 went down...He has set up his headquarters for a task of this immensity at the National Guard Armory in Friedens, which is also serving as the temporary morgue.
Miller says when he got to the crash site that day there was nothing there that would have implicated a plane crash had just happened, except for the smell of jet fuel.
“I never dreamed a 757 crashed there because as I walked up through, there wasn’t anything recognizable, just some gears and clumps of metal,” he says. “It was incomprehensible that a terrorist plane crashed in Somerset County.”
Miller explained that his first step in this investigation was to request information from families, mainly because the major impact of the plane into the earth caused extreme fragmentation of human remains. That information came in the form of dental records or any DNA samples, which could have been blood samples from the family members themselves or personal belongings, such as saliva from a toothbrush or hair from a comb.
"DNA will be one of the main ways to identify the remains," says Miller. He said the DNA identification process may take months. It will be done at a government lab in Washington D.C.
Miller predicts that by sometime next week, the FBI will release the site to his jurisdiction and when that happens, Miller wants to make sure every effort possible has been exhausted to completely clean that site of human remains. He is overseeing a staff of morticians and forensic scientists, both locally and from as far away as Texas, including the Department of Mortuary Operational Response Team (D-MORT).How Miller could have been "responsible for all human remains being excavated from the crash site where United Flight 93 went down," when the crash site was under FBI jurisdiction for the first two weeks, is an inconsistency unexplored by Sandra Lepley. Given the "extreme fragmentation of human remains," the "temporary morgue" at the "National Guard Armory in Friedens" lacked the necessary equipment to make any identifications, even with the help of "forensic scientists," from the Defense Department's "Department of Mortuary Operational Response Team," among others
Even Bob Shaler, chief of forensic biology in the New York City Medical Examiners office, sent 13,000 bone samples from World Trade Center victims out to be processed by Bode Technology Group in Springfield, Va., according to a September 11, 2002, Associated Press article, Trade Center DNA identification effort creates new forensic tools,
While a August 29, 2002, Orchid BioSciences, Inc. press release, Orchid to Identify World Trade Center Victims Using SNP Technology, "announced that it has been awarded a contract by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City to help identify remains of victims of the World Trade Center disaster."
But there's the September 22, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Four Flight 93 victims identified, By Tom Gibb, which states in sure explicitness that the FBI "mandated" all remains be sent to Dover:
For now, the remains are being taken to a temporary morgue set up by investigators at Friedens, five miles from the crash site. From there, they will be transferred to the Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del., part of a process in which the FBI has mandated DNA matches as final confirmation.
If Wally had thought his position through, he would have realized that some things are outside of his purview:
But the FBI's demand for DNA links could serve another purpose, offering one clue for identifying the hijackers from the Sept. 11 morning of terror, since investigators have suggested that the air pirates' real identities lie buried under layers of fake IDs.Hubris has been the downfall of many a better man than the hick Somerset County coroner Wallace Miller:
Officially, the land is an FBI crime scene. When the FBI leaves, it becomes a coroner's crime scene."In concert" wasn't it, Wally? Dancing with the big boys? You should never have started to believe in your own publicity. But now the Air Force has retracted Ret. Gen. John Abizaid's conclusion that an unknown number of Flight 93 remains were sent to Dover Mortuary, putting the lie to this early narrative understanding. Will the higher-ups flip-flop again, do you think? Why don't you all just admit there never were any bodies to begin with?
September 22, 2001, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Four Flight 93 victims identified, By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, Saturday,
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. -- Investigators have identified remains of four of the 44 people aboard Flight 93, the jetliner that crashed here 11 days ago, the Somerset County coroner said yesterday.
But the attempt to identify the rest -- a process that involves using DNA testing to confirm the conclusions -- could go on for a year, Coroner Wallace Miller said.
Just the search for remains, across fields and woodlands in a little-populated swath of mountains, could continue for months before Miller decides to call it off.
"It's not going to happen until I'm satisfied that we've done everything we possibly can," he said.
Miller reported the first identifications yesterday as investigators continued to dig through the crash site seven miles northeast of Somerset, shoveling out mounds of earth, then sifting through that soil for remains, personal belongings and bits of the Boeing 757.
"I can't guarantee identifying remains of all the passengers," Miller said, "but I'm hopeful."
Miller would not name the people identified beyond saying that all the people were passengers or crew, not hijackers. He said that the first identification came two days ago, when a tooth was matched to dental records.
"The identifications we have made for now have been mostly through dental records and fingerprints. We're also using radiology (records), and we can find surgical work such as hip replacements," he said.
For now, the remains are being taken to a temporary morgue set up by investigators at Friedens, five miles from the crash site. From there, they will be transferred to the Armed Forces Laboratory at Dover, Del., part of a process in which the FBI has mandated DNA matches as final confirmation.
Victims' families have been asked to provide items such as the victims' hairbrushes and toothbrushes, so that medical investigators can glean samples from which to draw final DNA matches. The DNA matches, in turn, probably will be the link that investigators use to identify most of the remains, Miller said.
But the FBI's demand for DNA links could serve another purpose, offering one clue for identifying the hijackers from the Sept. 11 morning of terror, since investigators have suggested that the air pirates' real identities lie buried under layers of fake IDs.
Miller said that the first identifications brought a measure of solace to the families involved.
When remains are accumulated, they will be turned over to families for interment, a process for which no timetable has been set.
If all goes according to a tentative schedule, the FBI -- overseeing recovery workers clad in white suits to protect them from jet fuel and possible biological hazards posed by human remains -- could turn the site over to Miller.
That would mean the pullout of the 100-member federal Disaster Mortuary Operations Response Team, which has aided in handling remains.
But Miller's search for remains could continue for months -- albeit becoming problematic if winter arrives in these highlands like it did eight years ago, with a 30-inch snowfall on Oct. 25.
Already, it is a painstaking operation, since remains were small and scattered by the impact.
"I'm not naive enough to believe we'll get everything, but we'll try to get everything we possibly can," Miller said. " ...When you have a plane traveling at 500 mph, I think you understand what the scenario is."
Once searchers have found the last remains they plausibly can find, Miller said, he and his staff could have thousands of specimens.
Yesterday, investigators drained a two-acre pond about 1,000 feet from the crater where the jetliner slammed into the ground, just another step in hunting airliner parts, personal belongings and remains, Miller said.
Officially, the land is an FBI crime scene. When the FBI leaves, it becomes a coroner's crime scene.
But when he surrenders control of the ground, Miller -- who considers himself a guardian of both the victims' dignity and the place where they died -- said he wants the land preserved, possibly as a government-administered memorial.
"I am aware of the historical significance of this spot," he said.
September 11, 2002, boston.com / Associated Press, Trade Center DNA identification effort creates new forensic tools, By Malcolm Ritter, [Cached copy at archive.org]
NEW YORK — Investigators using DNA for identification of World Trade Center attacks victims had to find new methods for analyzing thousands of bone and tissue samples, innovations that are expected to push their field forward.
"In terms of DNA identification of mass fatalities, this is a landmark case," said Jack Ballantyne, associate director for research at the National Center for Forensic Science in Orlando, Fla.
Experts in the trade center effort "have developed new technologies and new procedures that would definitely stand the country in good stead" for dealing with future mass disasters, Ballantyne said.
The trade center attacks presented experts with a monumental problem: some 20,000 pieces of bone and tissue, and a list of about 2,800 missing persons. And the crucial DNA from ground zero was often damaged by fire, heat and water.
To pave the way for matches, experts lifted DNA from personal effects like toothbrushes and razors belonging to the missing people, and derived DNA profiles from their relatives.
But when the towers fell, there wasn't any software that could handle the job of matching thousands of those samples to the thousands collected at ground zero, said Bob Shaler, the city's chief of forensic biology.
So, at his request, outside experts went to work writing software, and the job isn't over yet. Shaler's office gets new updates every week to make the process more efficient and easier to use.
Then there's the matter of getting usable DNA data from badly degraded ground zero samples in the first place. Shaler said colleagues at the medical examiner's office perfected a new technique for extracting DNA from decomposing tissue.
Then there is bone. Only about half the 13,000 bone samples processed by Bode Technology Group in Springfield, Va., for Shaler's office gave DNA results good enough to allow immediate use in identification, said Bode lab director Mitchell Holland.
An additional 25 percent gave only partial results, while the remaining 25 percent yielded no DNA results at all, Holland said. Usually, less than 10 percent of samples give no result, he said.
So Bode scientists went to work on two fronts. They tried new procedures and new chemicals to extract more DNA from bones, and they started using a new analysis procedure that lets them analyze DNA fragments only half the size of what they needed before. The shorter chunks are more likely to remain in the fragmented DNA than longer chunks are.
In fact, about half the ground zero samples that gave only partial results before are now giving high quality results for use in identification, Holland said. Bode researchers are also trying the technique on samples that gave no results at all. In any case, the use of smaller DNA segments should help in routine forensic work as well, Holland said.
Another company, Orchid BioSciences Inc. of Princeton, N.J., has found success with a different way of getting information from the tiny pieces of damaged DNA from ground zero. It is looking at a different trait than standard forensic investigations use, one that can be studied with small hunks.;
Human DNA can be thought of as long strings of letters, each representing a chemical in a certain position within the famous double helix. It's the sequence of these "letters" that defines the DNA code.
At some places along these long sequences, the code seems to stutter, repeating a short segment again and again. People differ in how many of these repeats they have in various places. Standard forensic analysis counts the number of repeats in 13 different places, plus another spot to determine gender, and the combined result is the DNA profile that can be used for identification.
The Bode researchers do this kind of analysis. The Orchid scientists, in contrast, focus on single letters of the DNA code. In many places along the DNA, where one person has a given letter, many other people have a different letter. Scientists have analyzed DNA based on this variability for some medical and scientific purposes before.
But Orchid has brought large-scale analysis to forensic identification. Workers check what letters appear in 72 places in a sample of DNA, and the overall result is distinctive enough to use in identification, said Mark Stolorow, executive director of Orchid division Orchid Cellmark.
Tests show this approach does work with highly degraded DNA, Stolorow said.
It'll take still more new software to employ that kind of data for trade center remains, Shaler said.
He estimates the identification effort will run six to eight more months. So far, more than 650 victims have been identified by DNA alone, out of more than 1,380 total identifications.
Shaler, who founded the city forensic DNA lab in 1990, said the trade center project has given him new respect for the molecule of life. "DNA," he says, "is a lot hardier than we thought it was."
No comments:
Post a Comment