Othram, the leading forensic sequencing laboratory for law enforcement, has announced a new priority service, KinSNP®, which enables rapid confirmation or exclusion of candidate relationships between an unknown subject and potential relatives in support of forensic genetic genealogy applications. The entire process is performed offline and there is no interaction with genealogical databases, maximizing privacy and security.

In 2019, Othram launched Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing®, which harnesses the power of massively parallel sequencing, paired with proprietary laboratory methods, computational algorithms, and database resources. Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing® prioritizes minimizing consumption of evidence, while producing the most comprehensive genetic profile from forensic inputs. Working with evidence unsuitable for other methods and laboratories, Othram has fully integrated an in-house process that includes DNA extraction, enrichment, and repair, to sequencing and analysis.

“KinSNP® is the perfect companion to FGGS to accelerate the investigative process, while maximizing privacy protections for voluntary target testers, and not only because the results are not entered into a genealogy database.” said David Mittelman, Othram CEO, “When target tests take months, investigators are compelled to test several potential relatives in parallel, but if it’s quicker, the tests can be done in series, with the selection of each candidate informed by the results for the others, leading to fewer tests overall to get to a solve.”

KinSNP® technology was recently used to confirm relationships in the widely covered case of “Mostly Harmless”. The priority service launches publicly in the United States and Canada, on February 1st. More information on the service is available at http://www.kinsnp.com .