DNA fingerprinting has become an indelible part of society, helping to prove innocence or guilt in criminal cases, resolving immigration arguments and clarifying paternity. It's inventor, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, University of Leicester, looks back at how it began. His plan was to use the primitive gene detection methods of the time to look at the structures of genes and understand inherited variation � the variation between people. An early outcome of this research was one of the first descriptions of a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). (DNA-cutting enzymes target short DNA sequences, and chop the genome into pieces. Some people have a small DNA change � a single nucleotide polymorphism [SNP] � in a target site, preventing the enzymes cutting the DNA at that site.) The general term DNA fingerprinting is used to describe all these procedures for characterizing DNA using VNTRs, RFLPs and other sequence polymorphisms techniques.

DNA Fingerprinting has its applications in the various sectors of life sciences, medical and crime investigation. The technique is used to find out guilt or innocence, suspect, in forensic identification, for powerful Law-enforcement, DNA Banks for endangered animal species, poached animals, DNA Forensics Databases, disease diagnosis, drug development, and SNPs as risk factors in disease development.