Feature Selection and Rapid Characterization of Bloodstains on Different Substrates - Rekha Gautam, Deandra Peoples, Kiana Jansen, Maggie O'Connor, Giju Thomas, Sandeep Vanga, Isaac J. Pence, Anita Mahadevan-Jansen,

Establishing the precise timeline of a crime can be challenging as current analytical techniques used suffer from many limitations and are destructive to the body fluids encountered at crime scenes. Raman spectroscopy has demonstrated excellent potential in forensic science as it provides direct information about the structural and molecular changes without the need for processing or extracting samples. However, its current applicability is limited to pure body fluids, as signals from the substrate underlying these fluids greatly influence the current models used for age estimation. In this study, we utilized Raman spectroscopy to identify selective spectral markers that delineate the bloodstain age in the presence of interfering signals from the substrate. The pure bloodstains and the bloodstains on the substrate were aged for two weeks at 21 2 in the dark.