Assessing the impact of using conventional swabs on the ANDE 6C arrestee biochip

Rapid DNA technology will provide law enforcement booking personnel the ability to process and query reference samples obtained from qualifying arrestees against unsolved crimes of special concern in real-time, potentially enhancing the speed of an investigation. The technology could also be utilized within the laboratory setting to expedite the processing of reference samples submitted with a case. Validation studies have found that when used with reference samples, the ANDE 6C Rapid DNA technology generates successful profiles that are concordant to orthogonal system generated data ∼85 % of the time. The success rate, however, appears to be contingent on the use of the ANDE swab. During this study a comparison between ANDE and conventional cotton swab results was performed to establish if there was a difference in success rate between the two substrates. The results demonstrate a substantial decrease in expert system passing profiles when conventional swabs were used. For those instances, a modified Rapid DNA protocol could be developed to aid in the recovery of the data.