• Question: Does forensic analysis involve a lot of chemistry or is it mostly a balanced mixture of STEM subjects?

    Asked by anon-362534 to Beth on 29 Apr 2023.
    • Photo: Beth Selway

      Beth Selway answered on 29 Apr 2023:

      Hey,

      I work specifically in explosives forensic work which yes I think does involve a lot of chemistry. But other forensic disciplines such as DNA or blood may involve more biology say. It depends what area you are interested in.
      There are also crime scene officers who go to the scenes to collect the evidence. I think less chemistry is required there.

Comments

  • Photo: Santosh

    Santosh commented on :

    TBH, I am not an expert in forensics, but our neighbouring lab during my PhD was involved in DNA fingerprinting, which is one of the foresic techniques. DNA fingerprinting involves experiments that look for specific patterns in one’s DNA. These patterns are matched with the subjects’ (or culprits’ in some cases) patterns.
    So, it involves some chemistry in extracting DNA and checking it, but also involves lot of biological and physical phenomenon in analysing the results.