Identification of skeletal remains in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the homeland war - a 30-year review.

Over the past 30 years, forensic experts from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have embraced advanced technologies and innovations to enable great efficacy and proficiency in the identification of war victims. The wartime events in the countries of former Yugoslavia greatly influenced the application of the selected DNA analyses as routine tools for the identification of skeletal remains, especially those from mass graves. Initially, the work was challenging because of the magnitude of the events, technical aspects, and political aspects. Collaboration with reputable foreign forensic experts helped tremendously in the efforts to start applying DNA analysis routinely and with increasing success. In this article, we reviewed the most significant achievements related to the application of DNA analysis in identifying skeletal remains in situations where standard identification methods were insufficient.

Forensic Analysis of the Abraham Lincoln Assassination: An On-Site Study of the Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre.

ABSTRACT: On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated while watching a play from the Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC. There is still controversy concerning the findings of Lincoln's autopsy. The physicians that attended the autopsy documented that the bullet entered the left occipital region of the brain, but opinions differ as to the path the bullet took through the brain. The official autopsy report documented that the bullet traveled through the left brain and did not cross the midline. Others who watched the autopsy claimed that the bullet entered on the left side of the president's brain, crossed the midline, and ended up just above the orbit on the right. In this manuscript, we reviewed all of the statements of the witnesses to the assassination in an effort to reconstruct the approach that John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, took through the Presidential Box as he approached the president. In addition, we conducted an on-site analysis of the shape and dimensions of the Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre to support the approach that Booth took. Based on this forensic analysis, we provide supportive evidence that the findings of the official autopsy report are accurate; that is, the bullet that entered the president's left brain stayed on the left and did not cross the midline.

The Assassination of Medgar Evers.

In 1995, Dr Martin Dalton published a recounting of his involvement with the first human lung transplant in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. As recalled in that account, the first lung transplant took place in the summer of 1963 in the context of another historical event, the assassination of Medgar Evers. This article is written in follow-up to Dalton's report in hopes of providing more insight into the events surrounding the assassination. This review will discuss the details of the assassination, attempted resuscitation, and the medical evidence presented in the trial of his assassin.

A Reevaluation of the Death of Vincent van Gogh: Suicide or Murder? The Need for a Definitive Autopsy.

Vincent van Gogh died on July 29, 1890, from an apparent gunshot wound to the belly sustained approximately 30 hours earlier on July 27. Although little is known how Vincent sustained his mortal wound, art historians have long believed that the death was the result of a suicide, a widely accepted "truth" for the mysterious death of the then unknown and now iconic artist. The basis and validity of this suicide narrative is still very hotly debated among van Gogh scholars to this day. We dug deeper into all the circumstantial evidence and testimonies to arrive at a comprehensive overview of the probability that it was likely impossible for Vincent to self-inflict his mortal wound.We used all the available circumstantial evidence related to the day Vincent van Gogh was wounded to present the information and conclusions as if we were before a judge as expert witnesses to answer the question: suicide or murder? If Vincent did not shoot himself in the belly (a red flag in and of itself), whoever inflicted that penetrating wound into his abdomen murdered him. In our study, results from firing the same model revolver that allegedly killed Vincent from various ranges (direct contact, intermediate, and distant) demonstrated within a reasonable degree of medical probability (greater than 50%) that it was not probable for Vincent van Gogh to shoot himself without a described powder burn.With little forensic evidence to rely on 130 years after the suspicious event, many have suggested a respectful exhumation and graveside autopsy utilizing 21 century techniques to bring resolve to this 19 century cold case. This crime, whether suicide or murder, has generated renewed interest and numerous questions surrounding the suspicious death of the most iconic artist of the 19th century. These missing forensic facts will remain buried with all the secrets Vincent took with him to his grave, unless a definitive autopsy is performed. What an autopsy could add to our forensic fact basis and understanding of this intriguing cold case is enormous and further delineated as the next step to answer these difficult, otherwise unanswerable questions and allow us to finally sign off on his death certificate with certainty.It is clearly impossible to definitively prove suicide or murder, but it is also impossible to disprove murder given the data and arguments offered in this analysis. A physician's opinion is based on the material available to him, and in this case, "our opinion as to the cause and manner of death is based on the limited amount of forensic information available. It is, therefore, our opinion, based on that limited information that in all medical probability, the cause of death is not a self-inflicted wound by Vincent van Gogh, and, thus, in all medical probability, a homicide."

Immune response induced by a linear DNA vector: influence of dose, formulation and route of injection.

Previously, minimalistic, immunogenetically defined gene expression (MIDGE) vectors were developed as effective and sophisticated carriers for DNA vaccination. Here we evaluate the influence of dose, formulation and delivery route on the immune response after vaccination with MIDGE-Th1 vectors encoding hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg). An HBsAg-specific IgG1 and IgG2a antibody response was induced in a dose-dependent manner, whereas the IgG2a/IgG1 ratio was independent of the injected DNA dose. Formulation of MIDGE-HBsAg-Th1 with the cationic pyridinium amphiphile SAINT-18 significantly increased antibody levels of IgG1 and IgG2a compared to the unformulated vector. In contrast, SAINT-18 had neither a significant effect on the IgG2a/IgG1 ratio nor on the type and strength of cellular immunity. Overall, the strongest immune response was generated after intradermal injection, followed by intramuscular and subcutaneous (s.c.) injection. The results show that the formulation of MIDGE-Th1 with SAINT-18 increased the efficacy of the MIDGE-Th1 DNA vaccine and is therefore a suitable approach to improve the efficacy of DNA vaccines also in large animals and humans.