Team R&D – Division Biological Traces (NFI)
The R&D team has extensive experience in developing, validating, and implementing novel molecular biological methods that further forensic casework investigations. In addition, a group of software developers and bioinformaticians produces bespoke and highly user-friendly software tools for efficient data analysis, statistical calculations, and well-visualised outputs. The team is part of a large casework laboratory handling over 50,000 DNA cases each year, and casework questions inform not only what is developed but also how development is carried out, ensuring that the tools are well aligned with casework processes.
In CapCell, the R&D team will draw on both areas of expertise and contribute to the biological assessment of single-cell samples, as well as the development of bioinformatic tools for data analysis.
I lead the Research & Development team since 2007. Main research themes are analysis and interpretation of complex DNA profiles, RNA profiling, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal analysis, the application of massively parallel sequencing for forensic purposes and the development of bio-informatic tools such as FDSTools and the DNA expert software suite DNAxs for streamlined casework data analysis, interpretation and reporting.. Besides technological improvements, much effort is spent on developing interpretation strat-egies, validation and implementation for forensic casework.
I studied Biomedical Sciences with a masters in bioinformatics and theoretical biology, after which I started my career as bio-informatician at the Research & Development team of the NFI. I will work on bio-informatic tools for the analysis and interpretation of single cell forensic data, building further on existing tools developed within the NFI such as FDSTools.
