Imagine this unique scenario if you will: A criminal murders a victim and leaves. Sometime later detectives turn up with a strange-looking portable machine which they install and it immediately hums to life. WIthin a few minutes, several DNA profiles are extracted from the air and displayed. One of the profiles is linked to someone they know all too well and the suspect does not have a good alibi.
Sounds like a plot for a sci-fi movie and yet we could be inching our way to that scenario coming true.
Researchers from the UK specifically the Queen Mary University of London were looking at ways to detect and grab eDNA (environmental DNA).
In their experiments, mammalian DNA such as that of mole rats was extracted thorough a pump that was rigged to snatch air samples.
One of the researchers Clare had this to say about the long-term potential "The silver lining of human contamination... is that it made her realize that airborne DNA could have forensic or public health applications. DNA from crime scenes is often degraded or sparse, but she was able to pull minute traces of the nucleic acid from the air and produce usable results."
The full article is here: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/environmental-dna-can-be-pulled-from-the-air-68645
Okay I'm definitely amazed and excited. I was just imagining how this research can change the whole system to a next level. 😊