Building the Face of a Criminal From DNA

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday June 24, 2015 @03:10AM from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.

Dave Knott writes: It sounds like science fiction, but revealing the face of a criminal based on their genes may be closer than we think. In a process known as molecular photo fitting, scientists are experimenting with using genetic markers from DNA to build up a picture of an offender's face. Dr. Peter Claes, a medical imaging specialist at the University of Leuven, has amassed a database of faces and corresponding DNA. Armed with this information, he is able to model how a face is constructed based on just 20 genes (this number will soon be expanded to 200). At the moment, police couldn't publish a molecular photo-fit like this and hope to catch a killer. But that's not how Dr. Claes sees the technique being used in a criminal investigation. "If I were to bring this result to an investigator, I wouldn't necessarily give him the image to broadcast. I would talk to him and say okay, you're looking for a woman, with a very specific chin and eyebrow structure."

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First look at unborn baby's adult face by Big_Breaker · 2015-06-24 04:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

Criminal investigations is a niche use. The broad use and real revenue would be an adult picture of your unborn child or new baby. Future parents already pay $300-400 for 3d sonograms of their fetus. Imagine seeing your new baby's face each year from two to twenty years old.
You could even sequence a couple individually and show the full range of boy and girl facial outcomes with probabilities. Right now they can use some morphing techniques as a kludge but genetics could be MUCH more predictive.
Creepy, creepy, creepy...