Increased levels of bilirubin in blood serum may result from numerous physical conditions including hepatitis, cirrhosis, enzyme deficiency, drug reactions, autoimmune disorders and physiological trauma. No presumptive test for high bilirubin levels in blood serum stains currently exists, which could prove useful in the assessment of crime scenes involving victims with one of the above disorders. Here, the use of ultraviolet 365 (UV 365) is described as a simple, nondestructive method for the detection of blood serum containing elevated levels of bilirubin.

The major use of alternative light sources (ALS) in the evaluation of bloodstains has been primarily focused on detection of whole blood, with relatively little attention to visualization of blood serum. Serum may become separated from blood pools during clotting, and because it is relatively invisible on certain backgrounds, go undetected by a perpetrator attempting to clean up a crime scene. Recently, Ultraviolet 365 (UV 365) was shown to be an effective tool in blood evaluation, useful for detection of even minute quantities of blood serum. Here the effects of environmental conditions on blood serum stain appearance were evaluated, including temperature, pH, protease sensitivity, solubility, and aging. Interestingly, it was found that the UV fluorescence of serum increases upon exposure to heat, which was accompanied by color changes under visible light and decreased solubility in multiple solvents. The efficiency of visualization of serum stains was somewhat variable, depending on the type of material on which it was dried. Finally, the current study documents the effect of heating on formation of fluorescent serum halo rings in dried bloodstains. Taken together, these data demonstrate that blood serum detection may be affected by certain conditions that influence its visualization under both visible and UV light.

The mechanism for creation of the faint ventral and dorsal images of a man on the Shroud of Turin is unknown. It has been suggested that image formation involves oxidation and dehydration of the cellulose present in the linen, or, alternatively, that a superficial residue on the surface of the cloth is responsible for creating colored products through the Maillard reaction. One of the major criticisms of the latter hypothesis is that gaseous diffusion is not sufficient to result in the detailed bodily structures present on the cloth. Recently, it was proposed that additional substrates might also participate in the Maillard reaction, specifically proteins and amino acids present in skin, helping to increase the detail of any image produced. Understanding more fully the properties of the Shroud image is important for the preservation of this cloth for future generations. In the current report the potential contribution of skin proteins and amino acids in the Maillard hypothesis of image formation was evaluated. Using a variety of systems, these data show that detailed imaging of skin imprints may be obtained through contact transfer and interaction with reducing sugars. These results importantly extend the scope of this hypothesis and provide additional, relevant information concerning possible mechanisms for the formation of the Shroud of Turin image.