DNA Fingerprinting

CREDITS
Animation & Design: Waldi Apollis
Narration: Dale Bennett
Script: Bethan Parry & Helen Stamp

What is DNA fingerprinting or DNA profiling?

Leicester University geneticist Alec Jeffreys developed a technique called DNA fingerprinting in 1985. It allows DNA samples from different people to be compared to look for similarities and differences. It is useful for solving crimes and can also confirm if people are related to each other, like in paternity testing. Any two people in the world have 99.9% of their DNA the same, so this process analyses the differences in the remaining 0.1%.

This modern technology is called DNA profiling.