ABSTRACT
Recent decades have been marked by a signifi cant advancement of technology. The development of sensitive molecular biology techniques to detect even the smallest amounts of nucleic acids has been welcomed in many areas of research. Increasingly, attention is being drawn to the presence of nucleic acids circulating in blood and their potential diagnostic and prognostic value for a number of diseases. In addition to blood, nucleic acids have also been found in other body fl uids including urine, bronchial lavage, bone marrow aspirates, saliva, and sputum. This has had a huge impact on the fi eld of forensic science, as DNA can readily be isolated from such fl uids, providing crime scene investigations with a wide range of biological evidence.
