New DNA technology tackles sex assaults

The science of collecting evidence from rape victims is being expanded at the University of Virginia (UVA) in America.

Scientists have developed a new technology called ‘Sperm Paint’, which could help police solve rape cases that previously had to be dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

“It`s a new approach to the identification of sperm in sexual assault evidence,” said John Herr, a professor of cell biology at UVA.

He said that developmental biologists at the university are hoping to solve more sexual assault cases.

“It will more rapidly allow a forensic practitioner to analyze sexual assault evidence, and have the sperm just jump out of them as a fluorescent image out of a dark background,” said Prof Herr.

Even for an expert with detailed images, it could take hours, and a lot of luck to find one sperm prosecutors can count on in court. But blue light makes the process easier.

“Right now, when the technician is looking at a sample from a rape kit, they need to be able to find an intact sperm, so even if they can find a head and a tail right next to each other, it doesn`t count,” said Liz Alfson, a medical research student at UVA.

She said that sperm cells break apart quickly, and without the intact cell, before now there`s been no way to prove a smaller part came from the whole.

“With Sperm Paint, what we could do, is be able to say that that tail, all by itself counts, because we know that protein by itself doesn`t exist anywhere else in the body, said Ms Alfson.”

Sperm breaks down over time and many cases are lost because victims are too traumatized to go the hospital only hours after an attack. The new technology means that even days later after a sexual assault, sperm can be definitively identified.