While they are not yet the cinematic experience of Minority Report, crime scene investigations are becoming more and more like sci-fi crime dramas. Researchers from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium and Pennsylvania State University stateside have identified genetic determinants of facial structure. With these markers, the collaborators believe it will be possible to reconstruct criminal facial shapes from DNA evidence alone.
While the forensic use of DNA isn’t a foolproof method, as it can only be linked to suspects in a DNA database, it still provides useful information for determining revealing information, such as hair color and racial ancestry. Scientists hope that this ability will someday be extended, allowing investigators to digitally reconstruct an entire face.
The teams from Catholic University and Penn State looked into more than 7000 points of information from 3-D images of 600 volunteers of mixed ancestry. By comparing genes known to cause deformity when mutated, the researchers then screened for genetic variations that were statistically linked to certain facial characteristics.
While full facial reconstruction is certainly still far away, this study confirmed the possibility of using genetics to determine visible facial features. Further trials among different populations will be necessary to improve the models developed by the research team. More data will also help increase the reliability of possible reconstructions.
While the reconstructions will not be valid sources of incriminating evidence, they will prove useful for narrowing down suspects. In this sense, they could be an important tool alongside psychological profiling. By helping narrow down a list of suspects, DNA facial reconstructions could ensure that high profile crimes would be solved faster and with fewer complications.
Additionally, this technology provides a means of facially reconstructing long-dead individuals, including species closely related to humans, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. In particular, when combined with a skull, facial reconstruction models could provide more accurate portraits of any individuals under study.
The power of this tool is readily displayed in determining how non-homo sapiens’ genetic material affects modern humans. To what degree do Neanderthals affect our appearance? What about other species in humanity’s long, storied lineage? While it isn’t quite the ability to speak with the dead, facial structure tells an interesting history about human genetics and ancestry.
Minority Report is going to have to wait on precognitive mutations to enter the human populace, but for now, facial reconstruction from DNA is yet another example of the future leaking into the present.
