ADDISON UPTON AP BIOLOGY DNA TECHNOLOGY PROJECT CSI: HOLLYWOOD

The CSI team at the Hollywood Police Department got a call one Tuesday morning about a murder at the Canterbury Hotel. When the team got to the crime scene, they realized they weren’t dealing with just any ole murderer; this guy cleaned up very well after himself and seemed to have had some practice at killing people. The only DNA they could find that wasn’t the vicitim’s, Harry Glass, was a microscopic drop of blood of what they assumed was the killer’s. Victim: Harry Glass

Back in the lab, the forensic specialist, Annie Stanfill, went right to work on trying to identify the unknown blood sample of the killer. The sample was too small to work with so she amplified it by a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). She then analyzed the DNA to see if it matched any of the DNA sequences in the police records since it looked like the killer was no stranger to murders. Annie cut the DNA by restriction enzymes and ran it through gel electrophoresis. The RFLP analysis of the sample was not a match to any records. NO MATCH

While Annie was working hard in the lab, the rest of the team had been investigating all of the people that had been in the hotel and had narrowed down to two suspects: Jane Doberman and Willis Hunter. They got DNA samples of the suspects and Annie went back to the lab, hoping to have some luck this time. Suspect 1: Jane DobermanSuspect 2: Willis Hunter

She ran the two suspects’ DNA through Southern Blotting with a labeled probe and used RFLP analysis again to compare the two. She still didn’t get a match to the DNA sample from the crime scene. The team was certain that the killer had to be one of the two suspects, but the DNA analysis was just not matching up and DNA does not lie. They searched though the suspects’ home and found a peculiar vial of some substance and a syringe in Jane Doberman’s apartment. It was not labeled so they took it to Annie and had her run tests on it.

The vial turned out to contain plasmids with cDNA. The tests found that Jane Doberman had inserted cloned DNA of someone else into her and fabricated the crime scene to point the fingers at someone else. This is why the DNA did not match anyone from the hotel or computer data base. Jane was arrested for the murder of Harry Glass and is currently serving 50 years in prison. CASE CLOSED