The Lagos State DNA & Forensic Centre (LSD&FC) has received the ISO/IEC17025:2017 accreditation of the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) for forensic DNA testing.

The accreditation resulted from a rigorous and successful completion of the A2LA’s physical inspection of the laboratory, audit of standard operating procedures and evaluation of LSD&FC’s quality management system in line with “Forensic Examination Accreditation Program testing standards and requirements”.

A statement signed by Lagos Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, SAN, said: “This accreditation is international recognition and testament of the state-of-the-art technologies available at LSD&FC and the competence and quality of work performed by the forensic scientists.”

According to him, “with this accreditation, LSD&FC has joined the very few laboratories in the world accredited under the latest 2017 (ISO/IEC 17025) standards in the area of forensic DNA analysis and serology. Accredited organisations all around the world understand the value of providing high-quality services that are backed by defensible data”.

Kazeem explained further that LSD&FC’s scope of accreditation covers the performance of several tests including Human Blood Identification, Seminal Fluid Identification, Spermatozoa Identification, Forensic DNA Casework Analyses using Gene Mapper ID-X and Nuclear DNA Database Analyses using SmallPond Database DNA Profiling & Matching System.

The Lagos DNA & Forensic Centre, according to the statement, has been working closely with the Police, the Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, Ministry of Health and non-government organisations to enhance public safety in Lagos State.

The release said the Centre has played major roles in crime scene processing and rapid resolution of several cases, including Suspicious Death Investigations, Human Remains Identification, Child Trafficking, Rape, Impersonation, burglary and Paternity/Maternity disputes.

“Recently, LSD&FC successfully identified all the victims from the Otedola bridge disaster. The toxicology and drug chemistry sections of the Centre upon commencing operation will perform scientific tests on body fluids, autopsy tissues and substances recovered from crime scenes with the aim of identifying drugs or chemicals that may be present at toxic or lethal levels in the body of victims”, the statement added.

The State Attorney General enjoined all Lagosians to take full advantage of this latest development in justice delivery and public safety by leveraging LSD&FC’s capabilities and continually partnering with the government to maintain security, law and order in the State.

Recall that LSD&FC was commissioned on the 27th of September 2017 by the Lagos State government to aid the investigation of crimes by applying scientific methods for prosecution, defence, law enforcement, national security and disaster management.