How UB researchers use blood, semen to unmask suspects

Researchers in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the University of Buea, UB, are presently optimising on how DNA test on blood or semen from a crime scene can be used to identify a suspect in a crime situation.

According to the Head of that Department, Dr. Fidelis Cho-Ngwa, when the sample of blood or semen is found on the crime scene, the researcher develops a profile of the sample and will be able to pinpoint the suspect who committed the crime, even if he/ she is found in a crowd.

Such results, Dr. Cho-Ngwa said, can be determined with a high degree of accuracy and reliability.

Such sophisticated DNA test findings are being developed in Cameroon to right the wrongs of the past, where perpetrators of horrendous crimes have often gone untainted.

Apart from the DNA test for suspect identification, Dr. Cho-Ngwa equally revealed that some researchers are also finalising the optimisation of paternity test. According to him, the Department has ordered for the last set of reagents to complete the optimisation process.

Dr Cho-Ngwa was speaking in UB recently, during the defence of some Masters and PhD theses by students of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

The DNA tests to ascertain the paternity of an individual and that of suspect identification at a crime scene are an expansion of a thesis that was defended by Martin Forka Esua, which was titled; Prenatal gender test: Evaluation of the maternal blood-based early fetal sex DNA test in Fako Division.

According, Dr. Cho-Ngwa, who was the Supervisor of the thesis, many pregnant women floods major hospitals on daily bases to find out the gender of their babies in order to be better prepared. Such tedious process, he said, has been demystified in the UB Biotechnology Unit.

According to him, the UB Biotechnology Unit has come out with a molecular test, based on DNA, which can be used to ascertain the gender of a baby as early as six weeks of gestation, using only a few drops of blood from the pregnant woman.

The results of this test, he went on, are very accurate, efficient and cost effective than the ecography.

Dr. Cho-Ngwa, however said, before such a test is carried out, they must find out the reason why a woman wants to know the gender of her child. This, according to him, will guard against women terminating certain babies because of their gender.

Another reason why the fertile gender test is carried out, he said, is due to egg link disorder or haemophilia, which he noted, is very prevalent in males than females.

“Since haemophilia is very dangerous, in some countries, people carried out this test to avoid giving birth to people with malfunctions who will end up suffering for the rest of their lives. As such, it becomes imperative to terminate such pregnancy as early as six weeks of conception,” Dr. Cho-Ngwa stated.

Researchers Exonerate Traditional Medicine Efficacy Meanwhile, two PhD theses defended by Moses Samje on Onchocerciasis: optimisation of in vitro Drug Screening Assays and Evaluation of anti Onchocerca Activities of some Medicinal Plants and Pure Compounds. And Jonathan Metuge Alunge on; Onchocerciasis: Evaluation of Natural Products from Selected Medicinal Plants as anti Onchocerca Agent.

The two researchers argued that traditional medicines are more efficient in the treatment of Onchocerciasis and typhoid fever than modern medicines. Their findings were corroborated by their Supervisor, Dr. Cho-Ngwa. According to him, they had earlier observed patients suffering from typhoid and discovered that those who were placed on traditional medicines got cured faster than those on modern medication.

This, he said, is because the bacteria that causes typhoid comes in multiple strings, which makes it impossible for a single antibiotic to clear all the population. But with a concoction of traditional medicine, which has multiple molecules, with each molecule attacking a particular strings, it becomes easier to cure the typhoid rapidly.

Dr. Chon-Ngwa said four principal plants were used in the research namely; Piper umbellatum (Cow foot Leaf), Ocimum gratissimum, among others. These plants, he went on, were very efficient in the Biotechnology laboratory.

The Associate Professor said even the World Health Organisation knows that over 70 percent of the population in Africa get their medical treatment from traditional medicine. The only problem with traditional medicine, he maintained, is standardisation and the lack of prescribed dosage.

According to him, most modern medicines originated from traditional medicines like; Quinine, Ataemecinine, which comes from the plant Artemisia Annual, which he said, has been used for several years to treat Malaria in China and Penicillin which comes from a fungus.

To Dr. Cho-Ngwa, traditional medicine remains very efficient in the treatment of certain illnesses but need to be standardised.