Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2016, $164,932)
The Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff Forensic Services Division (FSD) is an accredited crime laboratory under the American Society of Crime Lab Directors-Laboratory Accreditation Board (ASCLD/LAB). The crime laboratory provides forensic services to more than 24 law enforcement agencies within Contra Costa County, servicing over one million residents. The FY16 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction (CEBR) Program grant funds will be used to provide salary and fringe benefits for one Biology Unit staff, a Forensic Analyst Project position. This full time employee will provide the Biology Unit support with capacity enhancement-specific activities, such as validation of new technologies, equipment operation, sample set-up, reagent preparation, quality assurance/quality control tasks, research, special projects and casework. In addition, the laboratory seeks to purchase probabilistic genotyping software, such as STRmix, allowing for the Biology Unit to greatly increase their capacity and capabilities when interpreting complex DNA mixtures in casework. The Biology Unit is validating a new 27-locus multiplex STR kit (Promega Fusion 6C) and a probabilistic genotyping software is critical to decreasing the interpretation time of complex mixtures developed from DNA samples. STRmix will lead to a reduction in turnaround time and higher capacity throughput within the Biology Unit. The laboratory is actively moving forward to incorporate into casework the expanded CODIS core loci. With the addition of support personnel and software tools providing probabilistic genotyping, the laboratory will be able to meet the needs of the community we serve. nca/ncf