National Academy of Sciences of Belarus

11.01.2018

National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and State Forensic Examination Committee of the Republic of Belarus sign cooperation agreement

On 10 January 2018, a delegation of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus headed by Vladimir Gusakov, Chairman of the NASB Presidium, visited the State Forensic Examination Committee of the Republic of Belarus. Members of the Bureau of the Presidium, Academicians-Secretaries of the NASB Departments learned about main directions of work, tasks, functions, material and technical equipment of a single expert agency. The meeting culminated in the signing a cooperation agreement between the two sides.

This agreement aims at organizing NASB scientific developments for the State Forensic Examination Committee of the Republic of Belarus. The joint collaboration will create a platform for long-term and effective cooperation aimed at implementing achievements of science and technology in practice, creating new ones, improving and adapting existing technical means for solving forensic examination tasks.

The sides discussed the results and prospects of joint scientific research of the Scientific and Practical Center of the State Committee and NASB organizations, the issues of scientific personnel training and other issues of scientific and technical cooperation.

The NAS of Belarus will cooperate with the State Committee bodies in several areas. One of them is the use of the DNA Bank of the NASB Institute of Genetics and Cytology at carrying out scientific research on the direction of forensic genomic examinations. To develop effective technologies for forensic examination of vehicle parts failures, the committee staff will have access to the equipment of the Powder Metallurgy Institute. Experts are also interested in using laser systems of the B.I. Stepanov Institute of Physics to identify the nature and prescription of pathological changes in human biological tissues. It should be noted that that currently the Committee develop technologies for studying wood fragments to identify growing location of the tree. In addition, the State Committee is interested in developing computer programs based on self-learning algorithms (neural network systems). Such software products are in demand in many areas of expert forensic research (e.g. in order to promptly identify of a person on databases). The development of 3D modeling technologies, specialized means for fixing scenes including using unmanned aerial vehicles is under discussion.

It should be noted that under the program "High technologies and equipment " for 2016-2020, the State Committee together with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the NAS of Belarus works on developing and technological learning for producing reagent kits for forensic DNA identification of biological samples of certain species of wild animals during investigation of illegal hunting cases.