UNT Health Science Center DNA lab featured in Popular Science
The UNT Center for Human Identification’s DNA lab, housed at UNT Health Science Center in Fort Worth, was featured in the January 2009 issue of Popular Science.
"America is haunted by 100,000 missing persons and 40,000 sets of unidentified missing remains. Only one lab can truly connect the lost and the dead — and it’s revealing secrets of serial killers in the process," the 10-page article begins.
Titled "Killer Connection," it outlines how the lab makes DNA matches by following the case of "Debbie Deer Creek" – an unidentified young woman whose remains were discovered in Montana in 1984. The lab made the DNA match that identified Debbie Deer Creek as Marci Bachmann, a teenage runaway who disappeared the same year her remains were discovered.
The process of DNA extraction and the lab’s role as the only academic DNA lab in the country dedicated to solving missing person’s cases is examined.
The lab’s participation with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, is also explained in the article.
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