Forensic toxicology is a broad science that integrates principles and practices about toxicology and legal aspects, which occur in conjunction with medicolegal instances as with homicide, suicide, road traffic and other types of accident and/or disasters. Nowadays, the practitioners of forensic toxicology science have to deal with three chief sections, namely: postmortem, drug testing, and human performance forensic toxicology. Postmortem forensic toxicology is dealing mostly with investigation of abnormal deaths, or when drug intoxication incidence is assumed as a cause of death and no abnormal findings were detected during autopsy.
Part of the book: Poisoning in the Modern World
Recent breakthroughs in forensic sciences, bioinformatics and next-generation sequencing technologies have broadened the application of microbiome analysis as an upcoming forensic tool. Studying the variation of the microbial flora and their profile, as well as the interactions among microorganisms, hosts, and the environment, are recent topics in microbiome research worldwide. Such novel microbiome applications have created a wide range of additional opportunities for the advancement of the forensic science. There are many modern forensic uses for the microbiome, such as postmortem identification, geolocation inference, and post-mortem interval prediction.
Part of the book: Unlocking the Mysteries of Death