The Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s Office is hosting a free-to-attend CLE webinar on DNA Mixture Interpretation: Conventional and Software-driven Probabilistic Genotyping Methods. Pending approval by the NC State Bar, this CLE is for 2 general hours (1 of which can count as the technology hour) and the State Bar will charge you $3.50/hour.
Please register at the link below. Registration will close on January 4, 2021. Only those that register and confirm attendance after the webinar will be reported for CLE credit to the NC State Bar.
Register for January 8th Webinar
When: January 8, 2021 from 1-3pm. You may sign on as early as 12:45.
Where: Wherever you have internet access. Another email will be sent the week of the webinar with instructions on how to join.
What:
Section 1: Overview of DNA Analysis and Interpretation of Forensic DNA Mixtures
This section will focus on forensic DNA testing and data analysis. A brief overview of DNA testing theory will be presented, followed by a description of modern DNA forensic testing platforms that are currently in use (STR and Y-STR). The audience will learn more about conventional mixture DNA profile interpretation, recent updates and limitations, and statistical analysis reflecting the weight of DNA evidence. Relevant laboratory standard operating procedures and interpretation protocols will be discussed.
Section 2: Complex DNA Mixtures Interpretation and the Incorporation of Probabilistic Genotyping (PG) Software Technologies.
During this section of the CLE, the attendees will learn more about the theory of mixture DNA interpretation using computer-based probabilistic models, the power and limitations of PG software, and the challenges of confronting PG results in court cases. The presentation will incorporate actual case examples.
Who: Dr. Maher Noureddine, PhD. is a molecular geneticist with and extensive background in scientific research and training in human genetics. Dr. Noureddine earned his B.S. in Biology from Radford University in Virginia, an M.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University Medical Center (The Center for Human Genetics), where he published many articles on the genetics of Parkinson Disease and other human genetic disorders. In 2005, Dr. Noureddine was a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/NIH, where he studied the tumor suppressor gene p53 and genomic variations that confer cancer susceptibility in humans. His expertise includes specialized training in complex genomics, Mitochondrial genomics and bioenergetics, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) analysis, and gene structure and function studies. Between 2007 and 2011, he served as Chief Science Officer at Thought Leader Select, LLC, where he led many consulting projects for the top global pharmaceutical companies in various therapeutic areas. In 2011, he established ForensiGen, LLC, a consulting company that specializes in forensic DNA and serology evidence evaluation, interpretation, evidence testing, and education for law professionals. Dr. Noureddine has served as an expert witness on numerous criminal and civil cases involving DNA and serology evidence in State and Federal courts. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Criminalistics, and a member of the International Society of Forensic Genetics, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the International Association for Identification. He is an adjunct teaching faculty in the Department of Forensic Science at Radford University.
If you are an investigator or paralegal and need credit for attending, please send the appropriate form to me to sign and I will sign and return it to you.
If you’d like a refresher on the topic before Dr. Noureddine’s presentation, here are two helpful videos:
- Dan Crane’s YouTube presentation gives a nice perspective on the problem (complex mixtures) and solution (probabilistic interpretation)
- Overview of the software by Adam McCarthy, one of the software developers
Please contact Anthony.Monaghan@mecklenburgcountync.gov with any questions or concerns.