MSU creating ‘first-of-its-kind’ database to identify human remains

EAST LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - The process for identifying human remains is slow, low-tech and disorganized. A Michigan State University project aims to change that.

MSU is leading the effort to create software that will create a comprehensive profile of human remains, making the investigative process easier and more efficient.

The project, titled Methods of Sex, Stature Affinity and Age (MOSAIC) is funded by a $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Justice.

“MOSIAC will take data from skeletal remains and put them into a single algorithm, which will determine what is and isn’t important for the various components of the biological profile,” said Joe Hefner, associate professor of anthropology in MSU’s College of Social Science, in a statement. “This is the first time this has ever been attempted and it’s the first program in forensic anthropology that’ll do it.”

While other software for identifying human remains exists, none of them connect to any shared database. MOSAIC aims to create a shared database of unidentified human remains, streamlining the process.

To collect data, the research team will visit remains collections across America, Mexico Japan and South Africa.

“All of those data are going to better account for human variation, or the range of physical characteristics humans can have, that exists around the globe,” Hefner said. “That expands the possibilities for MOSIAC — it can be used not only by U.S.-based forensic anthropologists, but also by forensic anthropologists around the world.”

The project originated from conversations between Hefner and Texas State University Anthropology Professor Kate Spradley. Spradley is one of the project’s co-principal investigators.

“[Spradley and I] started talking about how we can combine our data, which led us to think about combining other anthropologists’ data,” Hefner said. “The next step was MOSAIC, which takes all of this to the next level.”

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