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Inside the FBI highlights news, cases, and people from around the Bureau—in audio form. For more information, visit fbi.gov.
[The episode begins with a suspenseful-feeling musical track.]
Narrator: The FBI Laboratory provides critical support to the Bureau’s mission.
This is especially true of the units who support the Combined DNA Index System (or CODIS)—an FBI-run, national database that contains DNA profiles submitted by participating federal, state, and local forensic laboratories.
Crime labs can use CODIS to search for links between DNA captured at crime scenes and the individuals profiled in the database. In this way, CODIS directly supports our efforts to crush violent crime by speeding investigations and enabling investigative breakthroughs.
On this episode of our podcast, we’ll meet the Bureau’s Federal DNA Database Unit, a supergroup of laboratory and biometric support experts tasked with ensuring that federally collected DNA samples make it into CODIS.
We’ll explain how the unit creates the genetic profiles that power CODIS, discuss how they recently overcame a historic processing backlog, and find out what’s next for the team.
This is Inside the FBI.
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[The episode's opening track kicks back in and repeats, in part, through the end of the episode.]
Narrator: The Federal DNA Database Unit, or FDDU, executes a unique, but critical, mission.
Federal law enforcement agencies—including DOJ [U.S. Department of Justice] components like the FBI—are required by law to capture DNA samples and biographic information under certain circumstances: when they make federal arrests, when they detain non-U.S. citizens, and after a person has been convicted of a crime.
These agencies then send each sample, along with information about its source, to the FBI Laboratory.
Once the samples reach the Lab, FDDU experts get to work.
First, they cut out a small portion of each sample.
Michael S.: They are working with scientific instrumentation we call punch instruments.
Narrator: That’s Michael S., a veteran FBI biometrics examiner who leads the Federal DNA Database Unit.
Michael S.: This is when we take the sample, which is now located on a little card, and they essentially have a scientific version of a hole punch. They basically line it up and punch a 1.2 mm hole in that sample card, which contains the DNA, and that is one of the hardest, most manual processes in terms of time commitment.
Narrator: That hole punch then drops into a DNA plate that is run through lab machinery that extracts and amplifies—or generates copies of—the DNA.
Next, the team uses other equipment to map limited parts of the sample source’s DNA to generate a genetic profile.
Federal law limits how much of a person’s genome the FBI is allowed to map for a DNA profile. As a result, our experts examine the minimum number of points needed to definitively distinguish one person’s DNA from another’s.
Michael S.: Typically, we look at 20 different locations in your DNA. Each of those locations are attributed to two numbers; one comes from your mom, and one comes from your dad. And so, that string of then 40 numbers is what is produced by our instrumentation—we call it “genetic analyzers.” It produces what’s called an electropherogram, which is a fancy way of saying a graph that shows you what your genetic profile is.
Narrator: Then, FDDU checks that profile for quality.
Michael S.: Our examiners are going through and looking at the data to make sure it meets certain thresholds, to make sure there’s no quality problems with the data, to make sure it’s consistent. You can see a number of problems when you are trying to develop a genetic profile that would cause it not to be able to go into CODIS.
The nice thing is, if you do see those things, we have recovery steps and recovery processes in order to be able to process the sample again and be able to hopefully get a full profile that we can then add to CODIS.
There are scenarios where we ultimately don’t get a genetic profile, and then we do send out a notice to the collection agency saying, “If possible, can you re-collect?” So, it does happen but it’s a fairly small percentage of what we see.
Narrator: Once FDDU’s biometrics examiners determine that a DNA profile is up to snuff, they add it to CODIS. They also store the corresponding biographic information in FDDU databases to ensure the sample can always be traced back to its human source.
Once a sample has been added to CODIS, it is then searched daily against DNA from crime scenes or evidence kits to potentially link individuals to crimes.
***
Narrator: In many ways, CODIS is a super-database. The national-level database is actually composed of a number of smaller criminal justice DNA databases. It also contains DNA profiles contributed by state and local forensic laboratories.
Even though it’s a team effort, the FBI Lab has historically done a lot of lifting—to the tune of about 100,000 samples a year.
But a federal regulation change in 2020 that required the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to start collecting DNA samples from federal arrestees and non-U.S. citizen detainees, as well as workplace challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, caused a surge in the unit’s workload.
By 2023, Michael says, his unit was receiving about 180,000 samples per month for processing. By August 1, 2024, FDDU was faced with a backlog of approximately 1.81 million samples.
This surge didn’t just increase the small team’s workload—it also created the need for a larger team and bigger operating budget.
FDDU tackled the challenge head-on through a combination of financial and administrative acumen, strategic cross-training, and innovation, successfully eliminating the backlog as of August 2026.
Michael S.: The backlog reaches zero when you are able to handle the amount of samples you get in a month, which is—we said—50,000 samples. We are well under that now, but back in earlier August, that’s when we hit that tipping point where we officially declared the backlog as being zero.
Narrator: Among other things, he said, the unit:
• Grew its workforce to a total of 90 personnel at its peak
• Purchased more laboratory equipment and added an additional work shift to address the increase volume of incoming samples
• Enhanced its IT systems to speed processes
• Added more computer stations to its space; and
• Started using electronic data when intaking DNA samples from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to save valuable time
Narrator: FDDU personnel have continued to mentor our DHS partners as they’ve taken on their new role as DNA collectors.
Michael S.: All of them have really come to the table and taken on DNA collections, and they had to train thousands of folks over time in [a] pretty short time frame, and we still work with them today on that training mission for new folks, as well as tweaking some of the processes and procedures that they have to make sure that we are getting the highest-quality sample possible.
Narrator: Next, he said, the unit is looking to lean more heavily into rapid DNA.
Michael S.: Rapid DNA is the technology that is used to essentially miniaturize the DNA-processing timeline and actual footprint. Rapid DNA instruments can now be produced that can create a CODIS-worthy profile within about 90 minutes. So, instead of having a large lab, as we have set up, with all kinds of robotic instrumentation to make everything efficient, the technology is pointing towards a miniaturized version of that, that all takes place in a much smaller box—probably about the size of a large microwave.
So, there’s the Rapid DNA Act of 2017, which President [Donald] Trump signed into law, which basically authorizes this rapid capability to be able to put things into CODIS.
So, since that point, we have been working, and it is a very heavy IT-based lift because of the network connections that have to happen, but there are a few states that have started to come online with rapid DNA.
We here at the Laboratory have our approval to operate rapid, and we are working with some partners in the federal government space to be able to implement rapid DNA usage at the booking stations.
The future is that a person is, say, arrested, brought into a booking station offsite, they have a rapid DNA instrument there. A sample is taken, just as you would today, and it is basically put into this machine. The button is pressed, and 90 minutes later, you have a CODIS-worthy profile that is automatically added to CODIS, instantly searched through some of CODIS, and you would get a response back potentially within minutes saying if there was a match or not.
That kind of speed and that kind of efficiency is really the next generation of where we’re looking—as somebody invested in DNA, as a laboratory—but it’s also a huge leap forward to be able to potentially identify somebody as being related to a crime when you have them still in custody. You can’t get that time back.
Narrator: Ultimately, though, the FDDU crew feels a responsibility to stay ready for whatever the mission might demand next.
Michael S.: We have to be ready to be able to be flexible and adaptive to any future challenges that come up.
***
Narrator: Visit fbi.gov/lab to learn more about the FBI Laboratory—one of the largest and most comprehensive crime labs in the world—and how it helps the Bureau solve cases and prevent acts of crime and terror.
***
Narrator: This has been another production of Inside the FBI.
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On behalf of the FBI's Office of Public Affairs, thanks for tuning in.
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