DNAstable Validation Kit

The Biomatrica Forensic Validation Kit is designed to enable the DNA section of a forensic laboratory to quickly and easily validate the long-term storage of DNA extracts at room temperature in Biomatrica’s DNAstable.  The kit and protocols meet the standard validation requirements established by the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods SWGDAM) and by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Quality Assurance Standards (FBI/QAS) for achieving quality assurance standards for forensic DNA testing laboratories. 

Overview of Kit content:

• Documentation
  • Protocols
  • Scientific references
  • List of reference sites
  • Certificate of Analysis (genomic standards)
• Materials
  • DNA controls (2800M supplied by Promega)
  • DNAstable 96-well plates (2)
  • DNAstable contamination assessment plate (1)
  • Empty 96-well plates (2)
  • DNAstable tubes for blanking purposes (8)
  • Moisture barrier pouches (2)
  • Desiccants (4)

  Biomatrica Technology for the Forensic Community

For more information on this kit or to place an order, please contact us at contact@biomatrica.com or call +1-866-379-6879.

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Examples of evaluation studies by Forensic scientists

Long-term storage of gDNA in DNAstable.

• Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office - Dr. Cecilia A. Crouse, Chief Scientific Officer
  • The study involved a rigorous evaluation of stabilization of forensic DNA samples using Biomatrica's DNAstable (room temperature) and cold freezers (-20C), at various sample concentrations (0.5ng to 4 ng), for 12 months. A highlight of the results obtained in the study is shown below:
    

  

  • The study was published in the Forensic Science International - Genetics, 2011 (see reference section below for link).
• Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department - Gregory M. Hadinoto, Senior Criminalist

  DNA extracts from 3 different sample types - blood, semen and buccal cells were stored dry in DNAstable at room temperature as well as frozen at -20C (control) for 45 months. After rehydration (DNAstable-matrix) and freeze/thaw (cold-frozen), the recovery and STR profiles of the samples were determined. STR profile results show no allelic drop-outs in all samples stored frozen or at ambient temperatures over 45 months. Higher DNA recovery were observed for DNAstable-stored samples over frozen samples as displayed below.

  

  Details of the study are reported in an application note.

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Talks and Presentations by forensic scientists

A Forensic DNA workshop was conducted at the 2011 AAFS Meeting, with presentations from four crime labs:

• Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD)
• Washington State Patrol (WSP)
• Orange County Crime Lab (OCCL)
• Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO)

Download all presentations here

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Biomatrica Products for the Forensics market

Biomatrica has developed a range of products for forensic scientists in biological evidence collection, transportation, storage, and processing. DNA extracts from different sample types (blood, semen, buccal, etc) can be preserved for long-time at room temperature with high quality and high yield. Our room temperature DNA stabilization reagents as well as assay enhancement products (see below) have been well validated by several forensic scientists and laboratories. A detailed listing of these validations and publications is also provided below.

	DNAstable Plus DNAstable / DNAstable LD DNAstable Validation Kit for Forensic Laboratories DNAstable Blood
	PCRboost STRboost

Key Customers

• Washington State Patrol, WA.
• Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, MN
• Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, FL.
• Orange County Crime Lab, Santa Ana, CA.
• Fresno California Sheriff's Office, CA.
• Oakland Police Department, CA.

List of publications, scientific posters, and application notes

• Davis, M.C., Le, L., Clabaugh, K., Trogdon, C., Nhan, P., Odigie, K., Lee, S., Hampikian, G. The PCR enhancer PCRboost™ overcomes inhibitors in STR and mitochondrial microsequencing reactions. 2011. Forensic Science International - Genetics. Submitted.
• Lee, SB, Clabaugh, KC, Silva, B, Odigie, KO, Fourney, RM, Stevens, J, Carmody, GR, Coble, MD, Loreille, O, Scheible, M, Parsons, TJ, Pozder, A, Eisenberg, AJ, Budowle,B, Taha Ahmad, Russell W. Miller, Amy B. McGuckian, Julie Conover-Sikorsky and Cecelia A. Crouse. Assessing a novel room temperature DNA storage medium for forensic biological samples. 2011. Forensic Science International - Genetics.
• Breeana Baker, Clarissa Trogdon and Steven Lee, Analysis of (N-4)bp STR Repeat Slippage on Low Quantity DNA Samples with PCRboost, 63rd AAFS Meeting, Chicago, IL, March 22-25, 2011.
• Kevin Kramer, Brent Myers, Heather Harrah-Lea, and Pamela Staton, Comparison of Room Temperature Forensic DNA Extract Sample Preservation Methods. 63rd AAFS Meeting, Chicago, IL, March 22-25, 2011.
• Clarissa Trogdon, Phil Nan, Clara Wang and Steven B. Lee, Enhancement strategies for overcoming PCR inhibitors. Promega Conference, 2010, San Antonio, Texas.
• Lee SB, Crouse, CA and Kline MC: Optimizing Storage and Handling of DNA extracts; Forensic Sci Rev, 2010, 22(2): 131-144.
• Gregory M. Hadinoto. Evaluation of the Biomatrica SampleMatrix room temperature DNA storage system: 12-month and 45-month data. Poster #60, 21st International Symposium on Human Identification, San Antonio, TX, Oct 11-14, 2010.
• Thomas Doedt, QIAsafe^TM DNA - An innovative Anhydrobiosis-based technology for long-term storage of DNA Proceedings of the workshop on Long-term storage of DNA Material, August 2009.
• Bruce Budowle and Angela van Daal, Extracting evidence from forensic DNA analyses: future molecular biology directions, Biotechniques, 2009, 46 (5), 339-350.
• Peggy Ho Faix and Althea Lee, How to improve recovery of DNA profiles, Evidence Technology Magazine, Vol 7 (#2), March-April 2009, pg. 28-31.
• Steven B. Lee and Kathy Roberts, Saving your samples: Room temperature stabilization of DNA and RNA, Emerging technologies in Forensic Science, 2008, Vol 1, pg. 8-10.
• Linda Le, Kimberly Clabaugh, Clarisa Trogdon, Andrew Chang, Marissa Meininger, Michael D. Coble, Odile Loreille, Melissa Scheibel, Rachel Demara, Sohela de Rozieres, Martin Latterich, Rolf Muller and Steven B. Lee. Recovering DNA profiles from low quantity and low quality forensic samples Recovering DNA profiles from low quantity and low quality forensic samples. A poster presentation at the 19th International Symposium on Human Identification meeting, Holywood, CA, October 2008.
• Kimberly Clabaugh, Brie Silva, Kingsley Odigie, Ron Fourney, Jesse Stevens, George Carmody, Mike Coble, Odile Loreille, Melissa Scheible, Margaret Kline, Thomas Parsons, Arijana Pozder, Arthur Eisenberg, Bruce Budowle and Steven B. Lee. 2007 and 2008 Storage of DNA samples at ambient temperature using DNA-SampleMatrix. Poster presented at the 18th Annual International Symposium on Human Identification. October, 2007, Hollywood, CA. Also presented as an oral presentation at the Fall 2007 California Association of Criminalists Meeting held in Berkeley, CA October 2007, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences February 2008 meeting held in Washington DC. Published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Volume 14. page 51 - and the Spring 2008 California Association of Criminalists meeting, May 2008, San Diego, CA.
• R. Muller, J. Muller-Cohn and SB Lee. 2007 Optimizing DNA Stabilization and Storage of Forensic DNA Samples using polymers. Poster presented at the 18th Annual International Symposium on Human Identification. Held October, 2007. Hollywood, CA.
  

Contact

For more information about Biomatrica products please contact us at contact@biomatrica.com or call 1-858-550-0308.