DNA Testing is a process or analysis of study of a person’s saliva, semen, hair, skin, blood and other materials of the body to find out about several genetic traits.
DNA testing also involves examination of chromosomes, proteins and chemical fingerprints of a person to study families, establish connections and to study population groups in general.
Mostly, DNA testing is used in criminal cases but can also be used in other fields like paternity, medical, genealogy and forensics. Let’s learn some interesting facts about DNA Testing.
1. It is a fact that humans inherit DNA from their biological parents and everyone possess 23 pair of genes. Every pair is derived as one gene from the father and the other from the mother.
2. DNA testing was first done in the year 1985 and in the year 1987, a rapist from Florida was convicted through DNA based evidence for the first time. It is a fact that 99% of DNA tests are accurate and this is why criminal cases these days rely heavily on DNA evidence, wherever applicable.
3. In the field of paternity, DNA can be used to identify the father of a person with 100%accuracy. It can also conclude with 100% accuracy if a given person is not the father of a baby.
4. In the field of forensic DNA testing, testing is done to identify the particular patterns to discover evidence at crime scenes. Analysts involved in forensic DNA testing examine 13 DNA regions and these regions can be termed as markers or loci. These regions are the genetic fingerprints of a person’s DNA profile.
5. DNA tests are also used to isolate the presence of a person’s hereditary to understand certain birth defects and diseases. This can be done by using the process of biochemical tests which go beyond the usual DNA profiling and goes onto evaluate or analyze the RNA.
6. DNA testing is basically a two part process which involves performing of the test properly and then interpreting the results of the test correctly.
7. Another interesting fact about DNA testing is that it can give you thousands of new relatives and add more branches to your family tree. There are several websites which match your DNA data to similar data on the web and help you identify your distant or close relatives. It can even let you learn about your genetic ethnicity.
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