fishes

1182 Words3 Pages

Have you ever wondered how police officers can classify someone just by taking a simple blood test? Well DNA profiling is a method of identifying an individual by unique characteristics of their DNA. A specific DNA pattern is called a profile. It is obtained from an individual by a sample of tissue, blood, fingerprints etc. DNA testing has many uses, both positive and negative, in our society. It also has many uses, in prevention of economic fraud, dietetic work, and classifying species, identifying bodies, screening for disease, and investigating paternity. Most importantly DNA profiling is used in forensic science to find who committed the crime.
Classifying species is also an important use of DNA profiling. The growing databases of animal genes have given wildlife researchers and environmentalists a powerful new tool to find new species and protect endangered animals. Scientists know the genetic profiles of some species so well they can tell the region or population they come from by examining the DNA of an individual animal.
DNA profiling is being used comprehensively for paternity testing because of its capacity to determine to a high degree of certainty about the claims to be a child's parents or grandparents. This will enable the investigating agencies to either include or exclude possible source of DNA found in relation to a criminal investigation. It is also true that DNA profiling can only be used if there is enough DNA in the samples. Crime samples can be compared to a sample from a known suspect or compared to a database of DNA profiling results from other scenes or from convicted offenders. If there is a "match", the two samples may have originated from the same person. While making comparison, the profiles generated...

... middle of paper ...

...make the scientist mad then he could threaten to release this information.
One of the main problems with the process of DNA fingerprinting is that the sample can be easily ruined. The tiniest pieces of genetic junk can contaminate DNA samples, causing them to be useless. This is a huge negative because if the scientist was to accidentally drop a single piece of junk the entire test would be ruined, and another test would have to be performed.
In conclusion, DNA profiling is something that police could use to help identify criminals, but the average person should not have to get a profile. There are pros and cons of DNA profiling, but in my opinion DNA profiling should be avoided, but it should be used for criminals, or people who have been involved in donating sperm etc. If the file of the donor was to be lost than DNA profiling could be used to find out who it was.

Open Document