Nanotechnology Comes to the Aid of Crime Fighting and Fingerprint Analysis

21 May 2007

Nanotechnology may help deliver the “smoking gun” in fingerprint analysis to stop suspected drug traffickers. In traditional forensics, fingerprint analysis is of limited utility—it only succeeds where the suspect’s fingerprint can match those fingerprints in an existing database. If the suspect’s fingerprint has not been logged in the database, of course, such a match is not possible.

Enter Nanotechnology-enhanced fingerprint analysis. Researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich and King’s College in London are reporting on a new technique they call “Intelligent Fingerprinting.” In the sample study, they conducted a test to determine which of the subjects were cigarette smokers and which weren’t. They use gold Nanoparticles to coat the substance of a fingerprint. The solution of Nanoparticles contain cotinine type antibodies, which will bind, upon contact, with cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine that remains in the bloodstream between 2 to 4 days after the inhalation of tobacco smoke.

Researchers then apply a second solution containing a fluorescent dye that binds to the cotinine antibodies, subsequently revealing their presence in the blood. Since it all happens in the Nanosphere, even the tiniest ridges and pores in the fingerprint can be thus lifted and amplified, revealing whether or not the subject is a smoker.

With their success, other applications will soon follow that will be a great boon to crime fighting. It will be thus possible to start applying this technology to dope dealers, who in a similar way will have the evidence of their misdeeds imprinted in their fingerprints. Other applications include non-invasive drug screenings as well. There is virtually no limit to the wealth of information embedded in a subject’s fingerprints, so long as the investigators know what they are looking for and are able to coax it from the fingerprint by applying the correct Nanoparticle solution.

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