Gene Technology Access Centre – MDA Visit

Futures Participants Learn About Crime Sleuths

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Futures and MDA staff learn about Forensic Science at the Gene Technology Access Centre (GTAC) in Parkville. GTAC is a fantastic facility which devotes a lot of its time to research and teaching.

The GTAC workshop had everybody’s undivided attention as we discovered the differences between Forensic Science and Science alone. Forensic Science can be used in a court of law, and we all caught our “criminal” in a practical demonstration using DNA.

Firstly though, we learnt what DNA actually was during a fantastic presentation which explained what cells, molecules and proteins were. Quite a few of us were astounded upon learning we had 10 trillion cells inside each of us!

We talked about a case study in Australian Law which saw the criminal convicted on DNA alone, and worked out why it’s so accurate.

After all the information we thought we’d be ready to star on CSI! That dream was quashed when we learnt that ‘Real life’ DNA research takes a minimum of two weeks, so the criminal isn’t caught by the end of the hour episode!

The facilities at GTAC were state of the art, with the instructors and scientists making sure everyone participated in the experiments. Everyone from MDA was fascinated by the content of material, and we thank the staff at GTAC for a positive learning experience.