Virginia teaches DNA technology to the world

by Garry Kranz
for Virginia Business
November 2005

Thousands of people flock to Virginia each year to learn the latest advances in DNA technology. They come from across the U.S. and as far away as Japan, Egypt, Australia and Europe to undergo intense training at the Virginia Institute of Forensic Science and Medicine, a private nonprofit that is emerging as a model of forensic education. Signing up for its seminars are detectives, judges, prosecutors, public defenders, ER nurses, physicians, social workers and funeral directors — virtually anyone who might deal directly with DNA evidence recovered at crime scenes.

About 800 people have completed continuing-education seminars since the institute’s inception in 1999. “We are in the business of making sure they are prepared and well-versed in their chosen specialty,” says President and COO Linda Carne, who runs the institute from a small office in the Virginia Biotechnology Research Park in Richmond.

VIFSM is the first private institute of its kind and the brainchild of best-selling novelist Patricia Cornwell. She worked as a technical writer and computer analyst at Virginia’s crime lab for years before launching her literary career. Cornwell donated $1.5 million in seed money that was matched by state funds to start the institute. Its faculty is composed of about 225 working scientists — a veritable crème de la crème of DNA subject-matter experts — who lend their expertise in all disciplines of forensic science and medicine. Fees for short seminars range from $375 to $675.

VIFSM also offers one- and two-year fellowships to aspiring forensic scientists. These are usually people who already have doctorates or master’s degrees but lack the special training needed to understand the highly complex nuances of forensic techniques. The fellowships — underwritten by grants, corporations, foundations and the state — are designed to help fill what experts say is a critical shortage of forensic examiners nationwide. Competition for them is fierce. The handful of students who are chosen receive a yearly stipend of $23,000 for the privilege of studying up to 50 hours a week, including classroom instruction and practical hands-on application.

Four dozen people have completed the fellowships, including a newly minted class of 14 graduates in September. Every graduate has gotten a forensic job immediately, with all but one remaining in Virginia. Most got jobs working at Virginia’s state crime labs or morgues. “We don’t promise our graduates a job, but we tell them that if there is a job here that they’ll be [among] the most qualified within the Virginia system,” says Carne.

About 3,000 people go through the organization’s training programs each year, including the fellowships, she says. Its influence is being felt in other ways, too. Officials in Kentucky have asked for the institute’s help in designing a similar institute. The Virginia organization is shaping a national curriculum for the federal Department of Justice to train police investigators on protocols for collecting and identifying DNA evidence.

Forensic education also is getting a boost from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. VCU is the only Virginia school to offer a master’s program in forensic science. The program is one of only 13 in the nation. Working with examiners from the Virginia Department of Forensic Science, students get exposed to situations and cases they are likely to encounter in a working laboratory. Getting into VCU’s highly selective program is tough: of about 200 applicants a year, fewer than 15 are chosen.