Novel approaches to fingerprint development

The Home Office labs at CAST continue to stress the importance of developing new techniques for elucidating fingerprints from troublesome surfaces. We will address this by utilising the optical properties of novel lanthanide/metal complexes and other fluorescent materials in order to image prints via chemical and physical interactions.
In addition, we will build on recent work under the
Heritage Crime banner, that will include perfecting protocols for the non-invasive retrieval of prints from metal antiquities. To this end our previous close interaction with Historic England (ex English Heritage) will be of great help.
Overall, the student will gain experience of directed chemical synthesis, forensic protocols, interacting with practitioners and stake-holders (such as CAST and HE) and with interested industrial players (such as Foster and Freeman). The work will aim to provide new techniques to the forensic arena - both in terms of practical capabilities and, hopefully, in terms of enterprise initiatives involving products.