A novel europium-bioconjugate method for latent fingerprint detection.

A lipid-specific europium-based chemistry for the detection of latent fingerprints is presented. The applicability of the method to both porous and smooth surfaces, its basis of covalent reaction with lipids, the absence of chlorofluorocarbon carrier solvent, cost, and development speed are all factors that imply that the approach will become a major fingerprint detection method. Other potential forensic applications of this type of chemistry include DNA profiling.