Get law enforcement out of biospecimen authentication

In response to long-standing challenges in biomedical research arising from misidentification of cell lines, the research community has broadly adopted a human tissue authentication standard based on a well-characterized set of short tandem repeats (STRs). But in so doing, the research community has largely settled on the same genetic markers for authentication purposes that are used by law enforcement around the globe for forensic DNA analysis. This serious misstep could undermine public trust in science and may inhibit the recruitment of research participants, particularly those from historically marginalized groups-many of which are disproportionately represented in the criminal legal system and law enforcement databases. Authentication of research tissues is critically important, but using preexisting law enforcement marker kits may have serious and undesirable effects that could have been, and could still be, avoided by developing an independent marker set or technology for scientific research purposes, distinct and apart from the forensic set.