This review outlines recent progress in the development of a novel universal approach for the nondestructive, confirmatory identification of body fluid traces using Raman spectroscopy.
The analysis of body fluid traces during forensic investigations is a critical step in determining the key details of a crime. Several confirmatory and presumptive biochemical tests are currently used; however, these tests are all destructive, and no single method can be used to analyze all body fluids. The Raman spectroscopy method is based on the use of multidimensional spectroscopic signatures of body fluids and accounts for the intrinsic heterogeneity of dry traces and donor variation. The results presented here demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy has potential for identifying traces of semen, blood, saliva, sweat, and vaginal fluid with high confidence. 91 references (publisher abstract modified)