Part of King’s Forensics, DNA @ King’s provides specialist forensic services in DNA analysis to support criminal justice and family cases, including complex kinship analysis, specialist low level forensic casework and forensic genetics (forensic phenotyping, geographic ancestry, canine DNA, and age estimation). Accredited by the Ministry of Justice and UKAS ISO 17025:2017 for over 35 years, led by Professor Denise Syndercombe Court, Professor of Forensic Genetics and Expert Witness who regularly provides expert reports on behalf of the defence, undertaking probabilistic statistical analysis for cases involving complex mixtures.

The group is the main provider of population frequencies for forensic purposes in the UK and sequenced population frequencies worldwide, and is one of a small group of international laboratories that are leaders in the use of massively parallel sequencing internationally. They have expertise in Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA tests, particularly useful in analysis of hairs (human and canine) and bones in criminal and disaster victim identification (DVI), in sexual assault cases, and in genealogy, and in identification of individuals with allegations of doping in sport.

King’s Forensics undertakes research and teaching including forensic genetics, anti-doping, toxicology, cybercrime, international and wildlife crime and forensic and analytical science. They house three accredited services: DNA analysis and Forensic Genetics, Drug Control Centre and City of London Police Fingerprint laboratories.