IntegenX said this week that it has met Federal Bureau of Investigation guidelines to upload directly to the National DNA Index System (NDIS) known arrestee and convicted offender DNA profiles, as well as casework known samples, generated with the company's RapidHIT System.
The RapidHIT GlobalFiler Express cartridges contain NDIS-approved GlobalFiler Express kits from Life Technologies, a Thermo Fisher Scientific brand. The cartridges have all DNA markers commonly used in most international databases.
With less than five minutes of hands-on time, the RapidHIT system enables buccal swabs collected from known arrestees and convicted offenders, as well as casework known samples to be analyzed in less than two hours, compared to weeks or months with conventional laboratory techniques.
This improved efficiency will allow laboratories to spend more time reducing backlog and processing other forensic samples, IntegenX said. The GlobalFiler Express cartridges allow users to process between one and seven samples in a single run, offering further savings to forensic laboratories.
RapidHIT System DNA profiles are completely compatible with standard databases that contain previously generated profiles from buccal swabs and crime scene sources.
NDIS is considered one part of Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the national level containing the DNA profiles contributed by federal, state, and local participating forensic laboratories. CODIS is the generic term used to describe the FBI's program of support for criminal justice DNA databases as well as the software used to run these databases.
"Having the ability to directly upload a profile into the national database from a rapid DNA system provides laboratories with an excellent option for turning results around quickly," Gray Amick, DNA technical leader at Richland County Sheriff's Department, said in a statement. "In our continued quest to reduce time to generating results, the RapidHIT System provides a great option."