As part of the BA Festival of Science’s Science in the City programme, state pathologist and RCSI Professor of Forensic Medicine Marie Cassidy will explore how investigators piece together evidence to explain suspicious deaths.

RCSI Professor of Biochemistry David Croke will describe how DNA taken from tiny quantities of blood and other bodily secretions is used in modern criminal prosecutions, paternity testing and disaster victim identification.

The evening programme is hosted by RCSI and will include a mock investigation of a suspicious death and cover current issues such as ‘touch DNA profiling’, offender databases, profiling of non-human DNA and the use of DNA intelligence by police. Less than 30 years since its development, DNA profiling has become a regular feature of both real-life and television criminal investigations.

In her capacity as state pathologist and Professor Marie Cassidy is involved in the investigation of suspicious deaths and homicides. She is also Professor of Forensic Medicine at RCSI. Professor Cassidy has been involved with the United Nations since the mid-1990s, and has travelled to Bosnia, Croatia, and Sierra Leone as part of a team involved in the investigation of war crimes, in particular the examination of bodies from mass graves.

RCSI Professor of Biochemistry Professor David T. Croke is a graduate of the University of Dublin (Trinity College) in Biochemistry and Genetics and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. His research interests include inherited disorders of metabolism in Ireland and Europe and the genetics of the Irish Traveller population.

Trinity College is hosting the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s Festival of Science 2005. The BA is a UK-wide organisation dedicated to connecting science with people, so that science and its applications become accessible to all. The organisation aims to promote openness about science in society and to engage and inspire people directly with science and technology and their implications.