Henry C. Lee University of New Haven, USA

Dr. Henry Lee is a Chinese American and joined the University of New Haven's Forensic Science program about 40 years ago and turned it into one of the top programs in the country. The building he still works in at 85 years old bears his name.

Dr Lee, the founder of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science, has assisted in over 7,000 major case investigations, has served as a forensics expert for 50 states and 30 countries and as a consultant for 600 law enforcement agencies, and has testified over 1,000 times in both criminal and civil courts in the United States and abroad. Some of the high-profile cases Dr Lee had provided investigative assistance for include the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, the death of Chandra Levy, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, and the reinvestigation of the Kennedy assassination.

M. (Manfred) Kayser Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands

Manfred Kayser is a molecular biologists and geneticists with a broad interest in human variation. Since 2004, he is (full) Professor and Chair of Forensic Molecular Biology at Erasmus MC, where he served as founding head of the Department of Forensic Molecular Biology (2004-2014) and head of the renamed Department of Genetic Identification (2015-2025), until it was closed down together with other departments as result of a reorganization of Biomedical Sciences at Erasmus MC.

His scientific interested is in understanding human (epi)genetic and (epi)genomic variation and applying it to answer forensic, medical, and anthropological questions, such as:

1) unveiling the genetic basis of normal and disease-associated human appearance and predicting appearance traits from biological samples such as those found at crime scenes and from human remains for genetically describing a person as relevant in forensic DNA phenotyping and anthropology,

2) exploring genetic variation of autosomal DNA, Y-chromosomal DNA, and mitochondrial DNA for respectively inferring bio-parental, paternal and maternal biogeographic ancestry from biological samples such as those found at crime scenes and human remains for genetically describing a person as relevant in forensic DNA phenotyping and anthropology,

3) unlocking variation of male-specific Y-chromosome DNA for linking and separating paternally related men from biological samples such as those found at crime scenes as relevant in forensic cases of sexual assault,

4) unveiling the epigenetic consequence of environmental exposure and epigenetically predicting externally visible habits from biological samples such as those of medical relevance or found at crime scenes,

5) exploring transcriptome and genome variation on the single cell level and applying it to separating multi-person biological mixtures and genetically characterizing and individual identifying separated mixture contributors as relevant in forensic practice.

He is further interested in various aspects of human molecular biology and their applications to forensic and anthropological questions, such as:

6) variation of gene expression and microbiomes across human tissues and inferring the cell type of crime scene samples for inferring human activity at crime scenes,

7) diurnal and circadian variation of various types of biomarkers and predicting the time of day and night from crime scene samples for molecular alibi testing,

8) age-dependent variation of gene expression and DNA methylation and inferring a person’s age from biological samples such as those found at crime scenes and human remains for describing a person as relevant in forensic DNA phenotyping and anthropology.

He additionally develops and validates new technologies that allow bringing his newly discovered biomarkers into practical applications, such as in forensics, medicine, or anthropology, and holds three patents.

Scientific Committee

Committee Members

Henry C. Lee

Dr Bruce Budowle

Peter Gill

M. (Manfred) Kayser

Olaf Andersen