Final Report/Thesis 2019

Introduction

In 1948, a man was found mysteriously dead on Somerton Beach, Adelaide, South Australia. His identity remains unknown until this day, and the case has been classified as one of Australia’s biggest unsolved mysteries. There was no ID or anything on him that shows a clue on who he actually was.

This project analyses Somerton Man’s DNA file extracted from his hair which has been corrupted. The project aims to investigate the Somerton Man’s DNA with other sample DNA files via computer techniques and biological engineering methods.

Background

DNA

DNA is the hereditary material which stores the genetic information in humans [2]. There are two types of DNA in human beings, one is known as nuclear DNA which is located in cell nucleus and another type is mitochondrial DNA which is located in the mitochondria. This project only focuses on the analysis of nuclear DNA. DNA stores genetic information as a sequence built up with four types of nitrogen bases which are adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T) [2]. Also, a sugar molecule and a phosphate molecule are attached to each nitrogen base to form a molecule called nucleotide. The bases would pair up (A with T and C with G) and multiple nucleotides are placed in two strands to form a double helix which looks like a spiral [2]. In general, a DNA is a genetic sequence formed by multiple base pairs. The genetic instructions of building and maintaining an organism are obtained from the order of these base pairs [2]. There are about 3 billion bases in human DNA, in which more than 99% of the bases are common in all human beings, and the physiological differences among people depends on these 1% DNA.