Author Description

This Book Discusses The Recently Developed Capacity To Use Dna Sequence Information To Make Inferences About Historical Events. Part One Focuses On How Dna Analysis Can Reconstruct The Recent Past, In Particular, The Events That Transpired At The Scene Of A Crime. Part Two Is A Discussion Of How The Same Dna Technology And Genetic Data Can Be Used To Reconstruct The Ancient Past, Using Dna Sequences From Human Samples As Well As From Fossil Remains To Study The Evolution Of The Human Species And The Historical Relationships Among Contemporary And Extinct Human Populations. The Author Discusses How He And His Colleagues At Cetus Corp In The Mid 1980s Developed The Pcr (polymerase Chain Reaction) Technology Of Specific Dna Amplification, A Method Of Synthesizing Millions Of Copies Of A Specific Targeted Dna Sequence, And Applied It To Address Forensic And Evolutionary Questions. His Lab Applied These Now Widely Used Techniques In The First Dna Criminal Case, The First Exoneration Case, And The First Identification Of A Missing Person-- Provided By Publisher.