Researchers analysed thousands of laboratory-made plasmids and discovered that nearly half of them had defects, raising questions of experimental reproducibility.
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The team that developed the test says it could provide valuable leads in cases where perpetrators cannot be identified through DNA profiling.
The Hirisplex system could allow investigators to narrow down a large group of possible suspects.
Details appear in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.
Predicting phenotypes - outward traits such as hair colour or eye colour - from DNA information is an emerging field in forensics.
An important current approach, known as genetic profiling, involves comparing crime scene DNA with that from a suspect or with a profile stored in a database.
But this relies on the person either being among a pool of suspects identified by the police or having their profile in a DNA database.
Tools such as Hirisplex could be useful in those cases where the perpetrator is completely unknown to the authorities, said Prof Manfred Kayser, who led the study.
He said the test "includes the 24...