Life Technologies said this week that its Applied Biosystems Identifiler Direct and Identifiler Plus forensic kits have been approved by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for use in laboratories generating DNA profiles for inclusion in the National DNA Index System CODIS database.
The approval follows Life Tech's announcement in January that its AmpFℓSTR MiniFiler PCR amplification kit was approved for inclusion in the FBI's National DNA Index System (PCR Insider, 1/28/10).
Life Tech said at the time that it expected the FBI approval to lead to wider adoption of MiniFiler in forensic laboratories around the country.
This week, the company said that the newly approved kits, when combined with MiniFiler kits, would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of forensic DNA laboratories.
"With this NDIS approval, forensic scientists can now take full advantage of the innovations offered by our new kits, and integrate these capabilities with our next-generation 3500 genetic analysis systems," Leonard Klevan, president of human identification at Life Tech, said in a statement.
"Ultimately, we believe this will have a significant impact in solving and preventing a wide variety of crimes, contributing to public safety and security," Klevan added.
The Identifiler Direct kit is the world's first commercially available kit designed to enable direct amplification of database samples to address the challenge associated with processing an increasing quantity of samples, according to Life Tech.
The kit eliminates DNA extraction and purification for single-source samples on standard FTA cards, simplifying the processing workflow and automation requirements and accelerating testing by up to 30 percent, Life Tech said.
Meantime, the Identifiler Plus kit enables forensic analysts to recover more results from a wider range of DNA evidence by applying "next-generation" PCR amplification for enhanced sensitivity, improved performance on mixtures, and the ability to overcome high levels of PCR inhibitors, Life Tech said.
The company's previously approved MiniFiler technology uses mini-short tandem repeat amplicons to obtain DNA results from degraded or compromised samples that previously would have yielded little to no genetic data, according to Life Tech.
NDIS manages CODIS, which facilitates the electronic comparison and exchange of DNA profiles between participating local, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and forensic laboratories. CODIS is the world's largest such database, containing more than 8 million profiles, and has produced more than 114,000 matches between a DNA profile and the database, assisting in more than 112,000 criminal investigations in the US.