Genetics reveals dead man's appearance from a DNA sample

The body of an unknown man was found in Sweden almost 2 years ago. Unfortunately, it was found without its head and arms. For this reason, the person was not identified.

In many cases it helps, but in this case even a routine DNA analysis did not reveal a link to a person in the police database. The Swedish police have therefore turned to experts and have had an approximate likeness of the man drawn up on the basis of DNA. This was successful and the image created will be compared with missing persons in Europe.

Mgr. Marian Baldovic, PhD. said the following about that case: "Studies have shown DNA variants that are related to a given probability of appearance, such as nose shape, eye shape, or pigmentation. As for the man's nationality, unfortunately, that can't be determined from DNA. Nations are a very young thing in terms of genetics. Thus, genetics is only weekly associated with ethnic variation. However, geographic origins determined by DNA analysis at the level of regions of Europe can be, and often are, quite helpful in finding and identifying people. "

This method is used only in extreme cases, as it is a more demanding analysis and works with many probabilistic models in the output. However, the rise of similar methods in DNA analysis is intensifying, and we believe that genetics is the future not only for predicting health complications, but is increasingly accurate in identifying criminals and victims.