It’s in the genes (3)

published 1 September 2008, MST

I have talked about the more popular applications of DNA technology in the last two weeks. Analyzing a person’s deoxyribonucleic acid profile, which is uniquely his unless he has an identical twin, is most commonly used in the determination of paternity and the investigation of criminal cases, usually rape.

There is another application, and it involves the task of determining the identity of victims of tragedies in the event that conventional methods like recognition of facial features, identification of clothes and accessories, the approximation of height and even comparison with dental records may be insufficient.

Recall for instance the fire that razed the Asociacion de Damas Filipinas, a social welfare institution located in Paco, Manila, in the early morning hours of Dec. 3, 1998. Twenty-three were reported dead, all of them children, ranging in age from 6 months to 8 years. Among the dead, only one was identified by kin using conventional methods. The rest of the casualties were buried, only to be exhumed about three months later for identification purposes.

A team of Filipino scientists (Gayvelline Calacal, Frederick Delfin, Michelle Music Tan, Lutz Roewer, Danilo Magtanong, Myra Lara, Raquel Fortun and Maria Corazon de Ungria) worked on the remains of 21 of the victims. They documented their efforts and, much later, in September 2005, published an article in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. The combination of conventional techniques and autosomal and Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat methods of DNA analysis helped identify 18 of the 21 bodies exhumed.

The victims were mostly orphans and children of single parents. While the loss was overwhelming for the children’s relatives and the personnel of the Damas, the identification provided some closure—and a bit of consolation.

Fast forward to June 2008, when more than 700 passengers of Sulpicio Lines’ m/v Princess of the Stars perished after the ship sailed into Typhoon Frank, battled huge waves, and capsized. After the initial chaos and the knee-jerk finger-pointing among many different agencies and the passenger line, local scientists offered their expertise to help identify the bodies that had been washed ashore or remained trapped in the ship.

Alas, the collected samples were shipped to Sarajevo, where the DNA profiling was done by the International Commission on Missing Persons, upon coordination with the Interpol and our National Bureau of Investigation. Interpol is reported to have spent $700,000 already trying to identify the remains of no less than 312 of the sunken ship’s passengers.

The help extended by these institutions is to be thankful for. But the head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the National Science Research Institute of the University of the Philippines, Maria Corazon de Ungria, PhD, takes exception to this decision to “export the dead” when in fact the technology that can establish the identities of the victims is available here. Is this indicative of the level of our officials’ level of appreciation—regard, even—of local expertise?

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Day in and day out, academics do what they do best: Conduct studies, read volumes of literature, analyze data, and try to make sense of their findings. These experts, with credentials that could land them jobs at the most prestigious international organizations (and with attractive compensation packages, too, no doubt), however choose to stick it out in the country in the hope of making a difference here. They hope that their studies would serve as empirical bases for policy decisions that would eventually transform society. Or nudge it to the right direction, at least.

Actually, De Ungria thinks there should be a stronger and more defined partnership among the academe (for the expertise), the private sector (for its generosity and flexibility) and the government (for its network and structure). This ideal system would definitely work well for the campaign she has waged so that advances in DNA technology right within Philippine territory can be made known to as many people as possible. As I have been attempting to illustrate in the past weeks, the technology is a powerful tool for closure and for justice.

Via e-mail, De Ungria shares some of her ideas at generating public awareness of the use and of the availability of DNA technology. She is of the belief that this should be done at the local level. On one hand, direct stakeholders on the government’s side must be made aware of both the possibilities and the limitations of gene typing. On the other, community participation must also be encouraged.

By direct stakeholders, De Ungria means law enforcement personnel which must be trained in the collection and handling of DNA evidence, and who must coordinate with Women’s Desks and Child Protection Units of each city or municipality. She means local health care providers who have to be educated on the methods of collecting samples and who should stock up on rape investigation kits (I talked about these last week.) She means court personnel, lawyers and judges who have to be briefed on the relevance of the Rules on DNA Evidence released by the Supreme Court just last October. Finally, she also means educators who should impress upon their students the importance of such advances.

But scientists—thinkers like De Ungria—can only do as much. Her proposed solutions and the thousands of equally good ideas from other enlightened minds will remain as mere good intentions unless decision makers muster enough will to make things happen.