Forensic Science And Epigenetics: How Epigenetics Could Help Solve Crimes

Epigenetic variation has become an important complement to traditional forensic genetics, offering new ways to interpret biological traces and extract investigative information beyond sequence‑based DNA profiling. This volume brings together current approaches that apply DNA methylation and related epigenetic markers to forensic questions, reflecting the field’s rapid development and increasing methodological depth.

The book introduces the conceptual foundations of forensic epigenetics and the laboratory and analytical techniques that support its applications. It then examines the use of methylation signatures to address challenges such as distinguishing monozygotic twins, identifying body fluids, and performing age estimation from blood, Y‑chromosome markers, semen, saliva and skeletal tissues. These chapters demonstrate how epigenetic tools can extend across biological materials commonly encountered in casework.

Further contributions explore epigenetic strategies for postmortem interval estimation and consider how these methods may complement existing forensic anthropology and pathology approaches. A concluding chapter looks ahead to future developments, including technological, ethical and legal considerations shaping the field’s trajectory.

By integrating molecular biology, bioinformatics, forensic science and anthropology, this volume offers a coherent resource for researchers, practitioners and students seeking to understand how epigenetic insights can strengthen forensic inference.

Sara C. Zapico is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology, in Newark, New Jersey. She is also a research associate at Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. Before NJIT, Sara was the graduate program director of the Professional Science Master’s in Forensic Science at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She also served as an associate at the forensic unit from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. Her research interests focus on the application of biochemical techniques to forensic science issues, like age-at-death estimation and the determination of post-mortem interval, with implications in aging and biomedical research.