Science, Knowledge, Integrity - Arts and sciences @ Syracuse university

The Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences is a unique blend of education, scholarship, and research. The institute prepares undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of interdisciplinary courses in forensic science and its branch disciplines including Forensic Anthropology, Forensic Psychology, and Forensic Firearm Analysis. Essentially every field has a component of forensic science. And so the question is what don't you teach? So what we focus on is as much we can in the basic sciences and chemistry and biology and physics, other science, in those areas. But in the initial courses, the gateway courses, the hard part is deciding exactly what you're going to include and sort of at what depth. The institute offers an integrative<br/>learning major for undergraduate students. For graduates, it offers a Masters in Forensic Science or a combined Forensic Science Masters and Doctorate with SU's College of Law. in one of the sciences, a major in chemistry or biology or psychology, one of those majors. And that really set you up for the in depth understanding of particular field. And the forensic then gives you specific application. And so, I think students that have both the depth within the field and the broad-based knowledge in forensics really sets him apart from other people at similar levels that are coming out of other institutions. The institute's groundbreaking research program explores forensic analysis, bioterrorism, and a detection of chemical in bioterrorism agents. and Biometrics is directed by Professor Kevin Sweder. Sweder studies proteins that repair damaged DNA and the histone changes that occur within cells that have been exposed to ultraviolet radiation and other agents. The team hopes that analysis of these histone modifications could lead to new ways of detecting whether someone has been exposed to anthrax or other agents. The team uses mammalian cells and yeast cells in the lab for their experiments. What we study is what kind of changes, what decorations get put on to the histones that alter their function or those decorations are put on in response to some cellular process. So our goal is to analyze this starting with things like DNA damage using either ultraviolet radiation or chemicals like 4-Nitroquinolone oxide and look at the changes that we see and determine how long live those changes are on the histones. Professor James Spencer believes that this unique blend of scholarship and research is something that will benefit the field of Forensic and National Security. I think it placed the University very well, but I think it also helps the overall dialogue in forensic science which is something that is important to raise the scientific level, scientific profile of forensic sciences. [ Silence ]