Quality assurance standards for forensic DNA testing laboratories

On July 15, 1998, the director of the FBI formally signed a document known as "Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories." This compendium of standards has been developed and reviewed over the past 3 years by the National DNA Advisory Board.

The document sets forth a set of specific quality assurance obligations required by all forensic DNA laboratories that received federal funding. An underlying premise of the document is that laboratory accreditation will be required to demonstrate compliance with the standards and, therefore, assure quality control and a quality program. Standard 9.5 of the document requires that "The laboratory shall check its DNA procedures annually or whenever substantial changes are made to the protocol(s) against an appropriate and available NIST Standard Reference Material or standard traceable to a NIST standard." These standards took effect Oct. 1, 1998.

The DNA Advisory Board charter defines its membership composition to include representatives from Federal, state, and local crime laboratories as well as a NIST scientist. The inclusion of NIST in the nations coordinated DNA testing comes as a result of nearly 10 years of close working relationships with the FBI in developing needed standards for DNA testing. A third Standard Reference Material or SRM (SRM 2392) for DNA testing soon will be released, complementing two other SRMs (SRM 2390 and 2391) used to assure accurate measurements in human identity testing.

CONTACT: Dennis J. Reeder, [phone]; [email protected].