Dr. Richard Saferstein Award in Forensic Science: Noemi Procopio, PhD

The Saferstein Award in Forensic Science celebrates excellence in forensic science and highlights its essential role in our criminal justice system. Join us for a featured lecture by this year’s distinguished awardee, Dr. Noemi Procopio, followed by a reception with light refreshments.

From Molecules to Evidence: The Forens-OMICS Approach in Modern Forensic Science

Advances in molecular sciences are reshaping the way forensic evidence is generated, interpreted, and presented. This lecture introduces the “Forens-OMICS” approach, a multidisciplinary framework that integrates proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome analysis, and human DNA-based markers, including DNA methylation, to address long-standing challenges in forensic investigations. Moving beyond traditional morphological and single-marker targeted methods, Forens-OMICS leverages complementary omics molecular signatures to extract robust forensic intelligence from soft tissues, skeletal remains, and trace evidence, including fingerprints.

The lecture will highlight how biomolecular data can inform key medicolegal questions, including post-mortem interval estimation, chronological ageing, and personal identification, as well as activity- and contact-related inferences derived from trace evidence. Through selected experimental and applied examples, the audience will be shown how different molecular datasets can provide converging lines of evidence, extend temporal and evidential windows, and strengthen interpretations when conventional approaches reach their limits. 

In addition, the lecture will include a practical case study drawn from an ongoing forensic investigation, demonstrating how molecular evidence can be generated, interpreted, and contextualised within real operational constraints. Key challenges associated with implementation, such as reproducibility, validation, inter-laboratory comparability, and translation into forensic practice, will also be outlined. Overall, the lecture highlights the role of Forens-OMICS in bridging molecular research and forensic evidence, and its potential to shape future investigative and judicial workflows.

Speakers

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  Dr. Noemi Procopio

  Professor of Forensic Sciences
  The University of Lancashire

  Dr. Noemi Procopio is Professor of Forensic Sciences and Principal Investigator of the Forens-OMICS team. Her research applies proteomics, metabolomics, and DNA methylomics to forensic science, with a focus on skeletal remains for post-mortem interval and age-at-death estimation. She also uses metabarcoding and next-generation sequencing for microbial and human DNA analysis, supporting human identification and PMI estimation, and explores proteomic approaches in archaeological remains to study past lifestyles and health conditions.