A new tool for tackling challenges in forensic medicine: microbial community

Abstract:

Biometric traces are regularly utilized as a breakthrough in criminal investigations, such as the forensic challenges concerning personal identification, suspect tracking, or postmortem interval (PMI), and biogenic evidence is frequently used. In spite of the numerous conventional techniques in forensic medicine, scholars have been sparing no efforts to create new instruments in light of the limitations of available methods or for the benefit of practitioners in this field. Thanks to the advancement of sequencing technology, it has been found that the microorganisms inside and outside the body far outnumber the cells, which have high value in location tracing, personal identification, inference of PMI, biocrime, and environmental protection. In this paper, the research progress in this area is described.

Key words:forensic medicine;high-throughput sequencing;microbial community;gut microbes