The IIS Aragón participates in a project to create robot portraits from DNA tests

The study, in collaboration with the University of the Basque Country, is recruiting volunteers to take samples non-invasively

Participants have the possibility of receiving the 3D image obtained from the scan of their face

Study the genetic variants that may be related to facial morphology in order to draw a robotic portrait based on a DNA test. This is the innovative objective of the project 'Determining genes of craniofacial morphology and their application to the development of molecular robot portraits', in which the Occupational Medicine and Forensic Medicine Group from the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), whose main researcher is Begoña Martínez Jarreta, in collaboration with the BIOMICs group from the University of the Basque Country, led by Marian Martínez de Pancorbo.

The project is based on a pilot study with several hundred volunteers who donate saliva samples and undergo a facial scan. Subsequently, the saliva samples are analyzed for a set of genetic markers useful in forensic investigations and already proposed for use by the international scientific community, but little studied in the Spanish population, and new markers are also analyzed and proposed. Genetic analyzes follow others that, using bioinformatics and artificial intelligence resources, allow their correspondence with facial features to be identified, for example, the distance between the eyes.

Martínez Jarreta, principal investigator of the project and professor of forensic medicine at the University of Zaragoza, highlights that, until very recently, this specialty of medicine did not work with physical features. “It is a very recent practice in forensic genetics,” she adds. Her group has been studying the Spanish population exhaustively for more than 30 years, since it is necessary to know it in depth before carrying out any type of mathematical-statistical calculation to assign individual identity in civil or criminal cases. From the Chair of Forensic Medicine she has collaborated for years with the State Security Forces and Bodies in very different activities. “This research topic has a special usefulness and application in the resolution of criminal cases, by facilitating the preparation of a robotic portrait based on DNA evidence in the absence of witnesses,” she points out.

The project also has the participation of a bioinformatics group from Granada and the Aragonese company Tecnomolde. The researchers in charge of developing it are recruiting individuals for sampling, which is non-invasive, so it will not cause them any discomfort. Participation, with the donation of the sample and the completion of the associated questionnaire, is completely altruistic, although volunteers have the possibility of receiving the 3D image obtained from the scan of their face.

The process will be carried out at the facilities of the University of Zaragoza, in the Faculty of Medicine, and those interested can register in the following online form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7-eKMjRxZT2e2XPilL9M6yqcIPr0SOcUH5fEdEw5yD0ysBQ/viewform. The personal data provided are anonymized and are used exclusively for the purposes of the project, which obtained a favorable opinion from the scientific research ethics committee and is developed in accordance with the Data Protection Law.