Relevance of Genetic Identification and Kinship Analysis in Human and Natural Catastrophes—A Review

Abstract

Different types of disasters, whether natural or human in character, lead to the significant loss of human lives. In the latter case, the quick action of identification of corpses and human remains is mandatory. There are a variety of protocols to identify victims; however, genetics is one of the tools that allows an exact identification of the victim. However, several factors may interfere with this identification, from the biological samples’ degradation not allowing the analysis of nuclear information, to failure to dispose of biological samples from family members. Access to certain family members could be a determinant of the proper choice of genetic markers that allow the identification of the victim, or his/her inclusion in a given genetic maternal or paternal lineage. New advances in the field of genetics are soon expected to allow for the identification of victims from disasters with only their biological postmortem samples; it may also be possible to draw a robot portrait of a victim’s most likely physical characteristics. In all cases, genetics is the only modern tool with universal character and can be used in essentially all biological samples, giving and identification of more or less accurate statistical character, depending on whether nuclear or lineage markers are used.