Foreign Rights contact
Doriana Rodino
phone +39 02.58.45.981
fax +39 02.58.45.98.96
rights@alphatest.it
Doriana Rodino
phone +39 02.58.45.981
fax +39 02.58.45.98.96
rights@alphatest.it
Sironi Editore® | October 2009
ISBN 978-88-518-0122-9
256 pp | € 17,00
Rights sold
France (Belin)
The book at a glance
The last twenty-five years saw the establishment of the DNA test as the ultimate evidence in the forensic field. The tale of genetic footprints opened new horizons since its beginning – both encouraging and disquieting. It’s a story of regained identities, exposed frauds, innocents set free; of lawyers who challenged the customs of the scientific community (and of the legal system itself); of researchers in the witness box – and sometimes even at the dock.
Ever since its birth in a genetic laboratory in the UK, the DNA test has been at the heart of harsh legal battles. It was used to question the identity of the supposed princess Anastasia Romanov and other famous people, it was crucial in notorious case like that of O.J. Simpson, it made the quest for desaparecidos deterministic in Argentina...
And it ended up being a political matter. In fact, what we now know as “DNA test” is the result of an unprecedented social compromise.
What about the future? Well, it involves not just cops and criminals, but each and everyone of us: who knows, one day we could all find ourselves labelled in a universal genetic archive. To get ready for what awaits us tomorrow, here’s an enthralling account of how the story went, so far.
From the foreword
«Having been a direct witness to the evolution of the DNA test, reading this book made me experience the same emotions of our first findings, the expectation that grew after the first solved crimes, the certainties and doubts, the satisfaction in unravelling complex cases – the hopes we have for the future»
Colonel Luciano Garofano, RIS (Scientific Investigation Department) of Parma
Table of contents
Prologue: 1984, back to the future (from Abuelas to an English lab)
Part 1, the discovery: An invention – The first forensic applications in the UK
Part 2, the test: The DNA test in the USA – Testing the test – PCR and recovered IDs – DNA wars are over, or are they?
Part 3, the burden of the test-tube: ID archives – The DNA of the innocents
Part 4, further reading: On genetic markers – 1984-2009: 25 years of genetic footprints
The author
Alice Andreoli has a background in biology and specialized in scientific journalism at the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), Trieste. She’s an editor at Chi l’ha visto?, the Italian TV show on missing people. She worked for RAI Educational, a national cable TV, and in the news editorial office at the press agency ANSA; she collaborated with magazines of the Gruppo L’Espresso. She was given the Armenise-Harvard science writer fellowship for her researches in the United States. In 2007 Sironi Editore published a collection of her column on Il Venerdì di Repubblica, about the relationship between men and animals.