Wright State University biology professor and international DNA expert Dan Krane was featured in a special miniseries on “Investigation Discovery (ID),” a U.S. mystery-and-suspense network.
Krane discussed the role DNA testing played in the Ramsey case in the second and third episodes. Ramsey was a 6-year-old beauty queen who was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. Her body was found in the basement of the family home about eight hours after she was reported missing. She had been struck on the head and strangled, and the case remains unsolved.
Krane said his interviewers were interested in what can and cannot be concluded from DNA testing results. “The presence of a DNA profile says nothing about the timeframe or the circumstances under which that DNA came to be associated with the sample,” said Krane.
Krane is one of the world’s foremost DNA experts, testifying as an expert witness in more than 100 criminal trials in which DNA evidence was presented. He is also the president of Forensic Bioinformatics, which has reviewed testing from hundreds of cases around the world every year since 2002.
Krane graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from John Carroll University in 1985 and obtained a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Penn State in 1990. He did postdoctoral research at Washington University and Harvard before accepting a faculty appointment in 1993 at Wright State, where he is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.
“There is a lot of great work being done at Wright State; we have outstanding faculty doing world-class work,” said Krane. “Any time a faculty member at Wright State gets acknowledged for their insights and the work that they are involved with, it’s a credit to us all.”
