Identification of gender and ethnicity via hair elements

Researchers from Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada) have developed a forensic tool that can determine the elemental composition of human hair using solid sampling electrothermal vaporisation ICP optical emission spectrometry. Multivariate analysis can then be performed to discriminate ethnic background and gender.

The study, reported in the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, outlines how the team analyzed 13 samples from male and female individuals of East Asian, Caucasian and South Asian ethnicities. They found that Mg, S, Sr and Zn could be used to correctly identify their gender, while a larger group of elements (Li, Mo, S, Sr, Cr, K, Ni, Zn and Pb) was able to identify their ethnicity.

This method is believed to be simpler, more rapid and accurate compared to existing techniques of hair analysis. The authors state, “This approach is advantageous over digestion and nebulisation, as it eliminates possible contamination or analyte loss that can occur during digestion, requires a smaller sample mass for analysis, and eliminates the dilution that follows digestion.“

Encouraged by the positive results, the team now aims to refine the test to enable the identification of a wider range of ethnicities.

Source: Huang L, Beauchemin D. Ethnic background and gender identification using electrothermal vaporization coupled to inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry for forensic analysis of human hair. J. Anal. At. Spectrom. DOI: 10.1039/C4JA00071D (2014) (Epub ahead of print).