ABSTRACT
As the ABO blood groups were the first to be clearly worked out, they are referred to as ‘classical’ blood groups. Altogether, there are approximately 15 different known blood groups in humans. For the most part, they are not generally very informative in forensic applications, but do serve valuable biological functions. In some cases they are of value in tissue typing, where having an exact match is more important than with blood transfusions. Some of the different systems include Lewis, Diego, Lutheran, PGM, Kell and Kidd. Some of these are inherited in such a complicated way, and are tested by using very specialised techniques, that they are of little use in forensic applications.
