Accreditation of a forensic genetics laboratory in Italy

Abstract Although in Italy DNA analysis is used since the beginnings, the introduction of a specific legislation had a very important impact for the quality of the results. Only authorized laboratories can now implement the database with genetic profiles; these labs have to follow ISO/IEC standard and according to the Council Framework Decision 2009/905/JHA of 30 November 2009 and the Recommendation 7 of ENFSI this standard is the ISO17025/2005 accreditation. Since December 22th 2009, ACCREDIA is the only appointed Italian Accreditation authority can issue the accreditation certificate. There is no rule to define the ISO test method for the study of DNA polymorphisms in forensics, thus each laboratory should build their own analytical system, reliable and reproducible, through its own internal validation. Here, we focus on some points of the accreditation process developed in our laboratory concerning internal validation protocol.