Serology Quest Review
Use both your notes and the text to review:
1. What are the questions you need to ask if you see a red stain at a crime scene?
a. Is it blood?
b. Is it Human?
c. What is the blood type?
d. What can the spatter pattern tell us?
2. Is it blood?
a. The specific characteristics of blood. Does it contain DNA?
b. Purpose of blood and role of hemoglobin
c. Contents in blood (i.e. white cells, red cells, platelets, plasma and relative
amounts of each)
d. Categories of presumptive tests used to identify blood
e. Specific tests used to identify blood.
3. Is it human blood?
a. Antigens and antibodies
b. Principle of antibody and antigen interaction
c. Antiserum
d. How antibodies to human antigens are produced
4. What is the blood type?
a. ABO blood typing and specific proteins involved.
b. Agglutination
c. Determining ABO blood type using agglutination. Be able to identify blood
type from agglutination pattern.
d. Percent of population that is each blood type.
e. Is blood individual or class evidence?
5. What can the blood spatter pattern tell us?
a. Be able to identify the effects of the following on the appearance of blood:
i. Velocity
ii. Drop height vs. diameter
iii. Angle of impact
b. Identify the direction of travel and point of convergence.
c. Identify point of origin.