Thesis Title: DNA-based human identification: Investigation into enabling massively parallel sequencing in forensic casework in South Africa
Supervisor: A/Prof Laura Heathfield

The occurrence of unidentified remains at forensic mortuaries remains a burden in South Africa. Current DNA-based methods used to identify these remains is based on the analysis of short tandem repeats (STRs) using PCR and capillary electrophoresis. However, these traditional processes have limitations regarding the discriminatory power that they are able to provide, particularly when applied to degraded DNA. This limits the success of identification of compromised human remains. Globally, massively parallel sequencing (MPS) has emerged as a technique that can be used to overcome these limitations. Therefore, in preparation for implementation of MPS in forensic casework in South Africa, this study aims to develop an MPS workflow as applied to reference and casework samples. To this end, large-scale sequence-based population data will be generated, which is highly lacking in South Africa. The data generated in this study will contribute to the improvement of the discriminatory power of current human identification techniques used in South Africa and will evaluate MPS as an alternative for processing challenging samples, which are frequently encountered at forensic mortuaries in South Africa.