Does PowerPlex® 18E System Live Up to Its Promise?

In this webinar, you will:

  • Understand the performance of the new PowerPlex® 18E System compared to other systems
  • Review real-world results from cold cases and blood mixture analysis using the PowerPlex® 18E System

Summary

No other field of forensic medicine has developed as explosively in recent years as forensic molecular biology. New methods are constantly being developed, including special applications, which are intended to improve the processing of specific case constellations. Prof Dr. Katja Anslinger's group at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich has been focusing with and on two such applications – both dealing with mixture deconvolution - for many years: The preparation of individual skin flakes from adhesive tapes as well as single cell DNA typing. The first is considered as one of the methods for finding the proverbial “needle in a haystack”, namely finding the one flake of skin left by the perpetrator in a huge majority of the victim's cells and often used in cold cases. Most skin flakes are of low DNA quality and quantity. Typically, profiles show (at best) pronounced ski slope effects but also allelic- as well as locus drop-outs were observed. Likewise, only partial STR profiles are usually obtained due to the very low DNA content of a single diploid or even haploid cell. 

Therefore, skin flakes and single cells are the ideal material to explore the potential and limitations of the new PowerPlex® 18E System. How does the kit perform compared to the PowerPlex® ESX 17 Fast, ESI 17 Fast and/or PowerPlex® Fusion 6C Systems used so far in their lab? In addition, what is the point of “the world’s shortest SE33” with an allele range of 170 to 310 bp?

Join our featured speaker, Prof Dr. Katja Anslinger, as she provides results from her comparative tests to answer the question, does the kit live up to its promise?


Speakers

anupama-v1-125

Anupama Gopalakrishnan, PhD
Senior Product Manager
Promega

Anupama Gopalakrishnan earned her PhD in Life Sciences in India, and following post-doctoral research at UC Irvine and UW Madison, she joined Promega as a technical services scientist, specializing in support of Genetic Identity products. With a strong technical background in STR, she joined Genetic Identity Marketing team at Promega in May 2013 as a Product Specialist. Currently, as a Product Manager, she supports new product development and ongoing product management of DNA extraction and quantification products for the GI market.

anslinger-image-modified-125

Professor Dr. Katja Anslinger
Head of Department of Forensic Molecular Biology
Institute of Legal Medicine, LMU, Munich

Katja Anslinger has been working in the DNA laboratory at the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich for over 25 years. The development of methods for more effective processing of mixed traces has always been the focus of their scientific work. Whether laser microdissection, magnetic beads coupled to antibodies, DEPArray technology or the preparation of individual skin cells from adhesive tapes - many techniques for the targeted separation of small cell pools and even single cells or skin flakes have been validated for forensic purposes during this time.