A step towards a revolution in law enforcement

Despite fingerprinting being essentially the foundation technique of modern forensic science, only a fraction of all the fingermarks at a crime scene are actually detected.

Now the work of UTS forensic science researcher Dr Xanthe Spindler has made an important step towards recovering usable fingerprints from old evidence and surfaces long considered too difficult by crime scene investigators.

The collaboration between the UTS Centre for Forensic Science, the University of Canberra, the Australian Federal Police and Northern Illinois University has resulted in a forensic science world first with the preliminary development of a novel immunogenic method to detect latent fingermarks.

The new method developed by Dr Spindler as part of her PhD work uses antibodies designed to target amino acids and can detect aged, dry and weak fingerprints that can't be captured using traditional fingerprinting methods.

Read the full story at the UTS Newsroom