New DNA technology decodes mysterious deaths

Polish scientists on January 14 said the new DNA testing technology could help recover at least part of the identities of people who have no longer left any images after their deaths.

This new HirisPlex technology has helped scientists identify the eye color and hair color of anonymous victims of Nazi killing. Not only that, this technology also helps identify a mysterious woman buried next to the monks in a medieval tomb.

"This system can be used to solve historical disputes without color photos and other documents," said Wojciech Branicki of the Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow, Poland.

The new system is a refreshing version of the tools that are still used to evaluate DNA codes for eye and hair color. The new system can also be used with teeth and bones, which have a longer DNA storage time than soft tissue parts.

In the scientific journal Investigative Genetics, the researchers said they initially tested on a tooth taken from the body of General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who led the exile government of Poland in England during World War II. before dying of a plane crash in 1943.

Sikorski's body was buried in a cemetery in Newark, England, and was reburied in Krakow in 1993. In 2008, people buried his grave again to test a hypothesis that Sikorski had been poisoned, shot dead or suffocated.

Genetic analyzes from teeth show 99% of the likelihood that Sikorski has blue eyes and 85% have blond hair. Both are compatible with contemporary descriptions of Sikorski and his paintings many years after his death (no longer his color photos exist).

HirisPlex also helped confirm part of the identities of 12 people who were killed in a Polish prison during the Nazi occupation in 1942 whose identity could never be known. Their skull was sent to Vienna, at an exhibition at the city's Natural History Museum.

DNA results from skulls are more likely to have brown eyes, and brown to yellow hair, a finding that is compatible with typical Polish people.

A third test sheds light on mystery at a Benedict monastery in Tyniec, near Krakow, where archaeologists discovered the bones of two women located next to 17 other skeletons known as male monks. gender. The test of one of the two samples showed the woman had brown eyes and blond or brown hair.