Weight-of-evidence for forensic DNA profiles

Date: 6th of July 2005
Location UNSW School of Mathematics
Red Centre
Time:9.30am to 5.30pm
Fee: $450 which includes lunch, coffee and a copy of the book "Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiles" by David Balding.

The School of Mathematics, UNSW, proudly presents a one day workshop on Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiless to be held at UNSW on 6th
July 2005. It is a satellite course to the AMSI sponsored Recent Advances in Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Markov chain Monte Carlo.

The course instructor will be Prof. David Balding (Centre for Biostatistics, Imperial College, London, UK).

WHO SHOULD YOU TAKE THIS COURSE?

Any student of the interpretation of DNA profile evidence, either to identify one or more individuals contributing to a crime scene DNA sample,or to draw inferences about genetic relationships, such as paternity.

WHAT WOULD I GAIN FROM THIS COURSE?

You will learn how to use probabilities to evaluate evidential weight,including how to calculate the likelihood ratios relevant to different scenarios, both for identification (including database searches and mixture profiles) and for relatedness. You will also gain appreciation of the strengths and limitations of this approach, relative to some alternative approaches to assessing evidential weight, and its practical implications in a courtroom. We will also cover some population genetics relevant to DNA profile evidence, and how to incorporate population genetics effects.

COURSE CONTENT

The course closely follows the book "Weight of Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiles(click book for table of contents) Very little background knowledge is required. Inevitably in practice there will be some advantage for those who are already familiar with short tandem repeat (STR) DNA profiles and their forensic applications, or who have had a first course in probability theory and/or in population genetics, but all these topics will be briefly introduced for novices. There will be exercises that require either a calculator or a very good head for numbers.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

David Balding David Balding has degrees in mathematics from the universities of Newcastle (Aust.) and Oxford (UK), and has subsequently
worked at the Universities of London and Reading (UK) to develop mathematical and statistical ideas in genetics and related fields.

He is currently Professor of Statistical Genetics at Imperial College London. Since 1993 he has occasionally served as an expert witness, primarily advising on population genetics and statistical aspects of DNA profile evidence. His publications related to the interpretation of DNA profile evidence have appeared in forensi science, genetics, law, and statistics journals.

The course will be based on his recently published book "Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiles" (Wiley, January 2005), which in turn is based on courses presented to forensic science trainees in London.