Fairfield, Ohio’s DNA Diagnostics Center (DDC) – one of the biggest providers of paternity tests in the U.S. – has just launched an over-the-counter paternity test which uses a sample of maternal blood at just the twelfth week of pregnancy.
Employing technology developed by the Gene Security Network in California, the test establishes the mother’s DNA profile by separating out blood cells from the clear plasma. This maternal profile is then subtracted from DNA-recorded algorithms in the plasma to construct the fetal profile to be compared against DNA samples from the possible fathers.
DDC’s chief science officer Michael Baird claims that the test will be an expensive one at $1,625, but that the method is vastly reliable when used correctly. Tests on 1,000 profiles performed thus far have produced no false positive results and in less than 1 percent of cases has the test proved non-definitive, he said.
Geneticists agree that the test’s method is effective in theory, but that they’ll need more data before they’ll get behind it.
"Of course we have to see the data," says Bruce Budowle of the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, and a former leading DNA testing specialist for the FBI. "But in general, it seems a more viable approach."
DDC said their new paternity test is in the process of being submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and has also been sent to the American Association of Blood Banks for certification.
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