Identifying People by their Bacteria
A potential new forensic:
To determine how similar a person’s fingertip bacteria are to bacteria left on computer keys, the team took swabs from three computer keyboards and compared bacterial gene sequences with those from the fingertips of the keyboard owners. Today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they conclude that enough bacteria can be collected from even small surfaces such as computer keys to link them with the hand that laid them down.
The researchers then tested how well such a technique could distinguish the person who left the bacteria from the general population. They sampled bacteria from nine computer mice and from the nine mouse owners. They also collected information on bacterial communities from 270 hands that had never touched any of the mice. In all nine cases, the bacteria on the mice were far more similar to the mouse-owners’ hands than to any of the 270 strange hands. The researchers also found that bacteria will persist on a computer key or mouse for up to 2 weeks after it has been handled.
Here’s a link to the abstract; the full paper is behind a paywall.
Subscribe to comments on this entry
mdb • March 29, 2010 7:54 AM
How many different ways can bacteria be transferred (sneezing, coughing, touching, tracking – just to name a few)? What about background bacteria – only 1 person generally uses a computer – how does it work in a lobby or better yet a bathroom? How well is the bacteria on your hand correlated to the last few items you touched? I could see this working well in the very controlled environment of a test – not so much in the real world. And even if (a big if) it works, it can be easily masked using rubber gloves, just like finger prints.