Two big stories in the news related to DNA and forensic work.

First, the New York Times is reporting that the FBI DNA lab is housing an ever-growing database of DNA samples:

The computers contain the National DNA Index System, a database of 6.7 million genetic profiles, the world’s largest repository of forensic DNA information. Under a 2005 federal law, the database will continue to include convicted felons, but it will also add genetic profiles of people who have been arrested but not convicted and of immigrant detainees — for an estimated 1.3 million more profiles by 2012.

Since it was established in 1994, the DNA database has helped identify thousands of suspects, and DNA evidence has exonerated more than 200 wrongfully convicted people. Law enforcement officials say they hope a larger database will help them solve more crimes, new and old, like the case of John F. Thomas Jr. He was recently linked by DNA to two homicides in Los Angeles that have gone unsolved for decades, and the police think he may be tied to several other killings.

But keeping pace with the expansion of DNA databases is a major challenge for the agency, which has sought ways to speed the processing of DNA evidence. As of 2007, the Justice Department estimated the backlog at 600,000 to 700,000 samples.

Second, Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv, believes they have proven it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence:

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Photo credit of the F.B.I.’s crime lab in Quantico, Virginia.