On 11 May 2011, Vanessa Lynch (with the DNA Project) and Poonitha Naidoo (Medical Rights Advocacy Network, MERAN) debated the ethical challenges of using a forensic DNA database in SA. The debate was part of the 2011 Darwin Seminars hosted by the African Genome Education Institute.

Advances in the field of genetics make it possible for police to use DNA profiling as a forensic tool to identify and convict criminals. Currently in South Africa, biological samples may be collected from crime scenes (blood, semen, hair), and processed by a forensic laboratory to produce a DNA profile.  

Storing profiles in a DNA database is a way of linking DNA of known suspects with DNA found at crime scenes. But concerns over privacy and police corruption make the management of such a database problematic. Last week (ED: 11 May 2011), the African Genome Education Institute debate the ethical considerations surrounding a forensic DNA database, many of which inform the 2009 Criminal Law (Forensic Procedures) Amendment Bill currently before Parliament.

The Welcome Trust is now accepting applications for the second "Molecular Approaches to Clinical Microbiology in Africa" laboratory course.

Details are as follows:

• Molecular Approaches to Clinical Microbiology in Africa
• 10-16 September 2011
• Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, Blantyre, Malawi Application Deadline: 29 April 2011
• Website: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Education-resources/Courses-and-conferences/Advanced-Courses-and-Scientific-Conferences/Advanced-Courses/index.htm

The course is free to attend and financial assistance is available for travel and accommodation.

Darwin talked about his “theory” but he should have said “theories”, because there were a number. The first is evolution, the least controversial of his theories and he wasn’t the first to think about it.

The second is the theory of common descent through modification, meaning that all species descend from common ancestors with other species. It explains many things but it’s controversial. For instance, if you want to know why ravens and crows are similar, you know that they come from a common ancestor. If you apply this concept to humans, you may say “humans are related in some respects to other animals, and we’re related to apes”. So humans and apes have a common ancestor. (It is wrong to say that humans descended from apes or monkeys, but rather that humans, apes and monkeys share a common ancestor.)

The third theory is that of gradualism: change in nature happens gradually, nothing by jumps. Forms change slowly – and this is Darwin’s real contribution, this is natural selection, the struggle for existence.