Cold case, hot technology
The Woodlands-based firm Othram applies DNA sequencing to aid investigations
David Mittelman spent the majority of his career in genomics, the study of people’s complete sets of DNA. He worked five years on the Human Genome Project, an international scientific effort that stretched from 1990 to 2003 to map all the genes that make up humans.
More recently, he’s watched the science become the foundation for an industry that has grown quickly. Consumers buy cheek swab kits to discover a family tree or connect with distant relatives. The health care sector screens patients for gene mutations that might be passed to children and cause uncommon diseases.
Now, Mittelman is targeting what he believes is another market that could benefit from genetic testing. He launched the firm Othram in The Woodlands last year to analyze DNA to help solve cold crime cases and identify bodies from unmarked graves. To do this, Othram extracts DNA from decades-old evidence or bones, reconstructs the complete set of DNA, called the genome, and uses software to store an electronic version of the genome for analysis.
“Once you can digitize it, it
lasts forever,” Mittelman said. “Otherwise, evidence decays, it gets lost. I want to digitize, build a digital library of all the evidence that’s out there. And then we can empower law enforcement or other organizations to go out and do these searches.”
Mittelman was first struck that DNA sequencing could be used outside of medicine as an associate professor and researcher at Virginia Tech from 2010 to 2013. And as he researched possible applications for DNA sequencing, he noted that forensics was using 30-year-old technology that looks at a narrow sliver of DNA rather than the entire genome. He also noticed massive backlogs in rape kit testings and efforts to identify remains.
So he raised $4 million in venture capital in November 2018 to build Othram’s lab and buy equipment for DNA extraction and sequencing, opening the lab in April. Othram’s customers, mostly law enforcement, pay for the company’s DNA extraction and sequencing services.
Mittelman had Othram’s business plan underway when the alleged Golden State Killer, said to have murdered at least a dozen people in California in the 1970s and ’80s, was captured in April 2018. Authorities took DNA from the evidence and uploaded it to a public DNA database, where people voluntarily upload DNA tests, often in hopes of finding relatives.
The DNA matched that of a distant relative of the Golden State Killer suspect, which narrowed the pool of suspects. Police combined those findings with investigative techniques to zero in on the Golden State Killer suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo.
The case encouraged Mittelman’s work and efforts to launch his business. Today, Othram, which employs 12 people including Mittelman, helps solve such cases.
Let’s say a police department has a 30-year-old cold case, and part of the evidence is a bloodstained shirt. Othram’s forensic scientists would soak the fabric in a solution that removes the blood and some of the shirt’s materials. A chemical is then added to break the blood cell membranes and release DNA contents. The solution is spun in a centrifuge and put through a variety of filters until just one drop of liquid, teeming with DNA, remains.
For the analysis, that drop is divided into smaller drops and placed into machines that assess how much of the DNA is human (old bones could be contaminated with bacteria) and if the DNA is of high enough quality to sequence.
Another machine is used for
DNA sequencing, which determines the pattern of the basic chemical components in DNA. This allows scientists to reconstruct a person’s unique genome. Technological advances have dramatically brought down the cost of DNA sequencing, making it commercially viable, while increased computing power has enabled software that can analyze the DNA sequences to reconstruct the genome — or something very close to it.
Mittelman said information learned by reconstructing genomes can complement the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which is used to confirm a person’s identity. CODIS has limitations because, in most scenarios, it can search only the DNA of people in the system, such as those who have been arrested or convicted. Othram’s ability to reconstruct genomes can help identify ancestral information or living relatives to narrow a pool of suspects.
Othram has extracted and digitized DNA that’s helped the DNA Doe Project make tentative identifications on multiple cold cases. The DNA Doe Project is a volunteer organization that uses genetic genealogy to determine the names of unidentified crime victims, who are known as John or Jane Doe until identified.
Othram will also sequence DNA from the 95 bodies found at a Sugar Land cemetery for people who died while serving a sentence in the state’s convict leasing system. This program, initiated shortly after slavery was outlawed following the Civil War and extended into the early 20th century, allowed prisoners, primarily African-Americans, to be contracted out for labor.
The University of Connecticut will extract DNA from teeth and bone fragments and send the DNA to Othram for sequencing in the hope of identifying living descendants.
“This is the very first cemetery of this type that has been found, and we’re learning about how bad these camps were,” said Reign Clark, the archaeological project manager of the cemetery’s exhumation and part of its research group moving forward. “It’s our opportunity to not only tell about what these men endured but give their names back.”
This desire to identify victims has prompted Othram to create DNASolves.com, a database for which people voluntarily submit DNA data to help solve crimes and identify victims. Companies such as Ancestry and 23andMe don’t willingly share DNA data with law enforcement.
“I’m betting on the fact that there are enough people in this country who want to do their civic duty,” Mittelman said, “and are as excited as I am to give a voice to the nameless.”