Family Life

02.24.09 | FL News Team

Researchers in Tucson, Arizona have developed a method that could allow scientists to predict what a person might look like using nothing more than their DNA.

A team at the University of Arizona's Steele Children's Research Center conducted a study where they measured the hair, skin and eye color of roughly a thousand people. They also looked at the unique genetic blueprint that formed each of these complex characteristics in the individuals.

By comparing the two, researchers were able to come up with a way to boil down the majority of the possible variations in hair, skin and eye color to a relatively small number of specific gene mutations.

The researchers believe their findings could immediately be put to good use in the field of forensic science. The Arizona team's model would allow investigators to extrapolate what a suspect or victim would probably look like from a small sample of DNA recovered at a crime scene.

The study will be published in the "Journal of Forensic Science."