National DNA database

A DNA database or DNA databank is a database of DNA profiles. A DNA database can be used in the analysis of genetic diseases, genetic fingerprinting for criminology, or genetic genealogy. DNA databases may be public or private, but the largest ones are national DNA databases.

When a match is made from a national DNA database to link a crime scene to an offender who has provided a DNA sample to a database that link is often referred to as a cold hit. A cold hit is of value in referring the police agency to a specific suspect but is of less evidential value than a DNA match made from outside the DNA database. Research shows that DNA databases of criminal offenders reduce crime rates.

A centralised database for storing DNA profiles of individuals that enables searching and comparing of DNA samples collected from a crime scene against stored profiles. The most important function of the forensic database is to produce matches between the suspected individual and crime scene bio-markers, and then provides evidence to support criminal investigations, and also leads to identify potential suspects in the criminal investigation. Majority of the National DNA databases are used for forensic purposes.

A genetic genealogy database is a DNA database of genealogical DNA test results. GenBank is a public genetic genealogy database that stores genome sequences submitted by many genetic genealogists. Until now, GenBank has contained large number of DNA sequences gained from more 140,000 registered organizations, and is updated everyday to ensure a uniform and comprehensive collection of sequence information. These databases are mainly obtained from individual laboratories or large-scale sequencing projects. The files stored in GenBank are divided into different groups, such as BCT (bacterial), VRL (viruses), PRI (primates)…etc. People can access GenBank from NCBI’s retrieval system, and then use “BLAST” function to identify a certain sequence within the GenBank or to find the similarities between two sequences.

A medical DNA database is a DNA database of medically relevant genetic variations. It collects individual’s DNA which can reflect their medical records and lifestyle details. Through recording DNA profiles, scientists may find out the interactions between the genetic environment and occurrence of certain diseases (such as cardiovascular disease or cancer), and thus finding some new drugs or effective treatments in controlling these diseases. It is often collaborated with the National Health Service.

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Wikipedia