Livonia — Beginning in January, a $250,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice will allow Madonna University’s College of Science and Mathematics to continue its research during the next two years in preserving bloody impressions found at crime scenes.

The project, titled “Developing DNA Friendly Fluorogenic Methods for Detecting, Enhancing, and Preserving Bloody and Proteinaceous Impression Evidence,” is being led by Jodi Lynn Barta, principal investigator; Wilson Muse III, investigator; and Jessica Zarate, investigator.

Barta, an associate professor at Madonna University and director of the school’s forensic science program, explained in email correspondence with The Michigan Catholic that the project is “an incredible opportunity for undergraduate students to take part in research that would normally be completed by graduate level students.”

“We currently have eight undergraduate students working on various aspects of the research and are hoping to add projects for more students as the work progresses,” she said. “We are trying to provide as many experiential learning opportunities as possible for our students in order to provide them with a superior education regardless of whether their goal is entry-level employment, or to move on to graduate or professional school.”

The abstract for the project explains that both bloody and non-bloody impressions of evidence are commonly found at crime scenes and are frequently used to further investigations.

Current methods of preserving the evidence are often problematic and impractical for DNA preservation, and so the Madonna team is working to help develop a better method.

In addition to lifting strips, the abstract explains that “some evidence processing may be more suited to a spray reagent to assist in detecting impression evidence that is not readily visible, as opposed to just a lifting strip format.”

The abstract details that the goals of the project include developing simple, non-toxic, time and cost-effective methods for crime scene evidence recovery, and that simplifying this project “while expanding the utility of the methods to include subsequent DNA analyses, has the potential to impact the future of impression evidence analysis.”