From a burned body to a full DNA profile in under 2.5 hours

15.04.2026

3 minutes

Bone is often the only tissue that survives extreme decomposition or fire. The standard extraction method requires grinding, lengthy chemical digestion, and multiple transfer steps of 6 hours or more, with sample loss risk at every stage.

The Forensic Science Laboratory of the French Gendarmerie (IRCGN) tested a PDQeX bone extraction protocol on a real case sample: a fragment of femur from a burned body.