This new device can guess eye, hair and skin color from DNA

New Delhi : Turn out that there is device to accurately predict the color of eye, hair and skin from DNA sample. The invention comes to be an example of advance technology today and can be used for forensic profiling.

Researchers have designed a web device which can exactly guess eye, hair and skin color even by examining a small DNA sample of an individual.

The “HIrisPlex-S DNA test” system is capable of producing all three pigment characters from human biological material together using a freely available web tool.

The tool is dedicated for use in standard forensic DNA profiling is not helpful because no reference DNA exists against which to judge the facts sample.

“We have previously provided law enforcement and anthropologists with DNA tools for eye colour and for combined eye and hair colour, but skin colour has been more difficult,” said Susan Walsh, forensic geneticist at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in the US.

The web tool can be used by users, such as law enforcement officials or anthropologists, who can enter necessary data using a laboratory DNA analysis tool, and the device will predict the pigment profile of the DNA donor.

“Importantly, we are directly predicting actual skin colour divided into five sub types — very pale, pale, intermediate, dark and dark to black using DNA markers from the genes that determine an individual’s skin coloration.

“If anyone asks an eyewitness what they saw, the majority of time they mention hair colour and skin colour. What we are doing is using genetics to take an objective look at what they saw,” Walsh said.

The innovative high-probability and high-accuracy complete pigmentation profile web tool is available online without charge, the researchers said