Two research projects by school of dentistry students added to a wealth of research led by senior lecturer Dr Geoffrey Tompkins, which made it possible to link bacteria from bite marks to the mouth from which it came.
This could be used to help track the suspects of assault, child abuse and sexual attacks where bite marks were often left on the skin, Dr Tompkins said.
A soon-to-be-published project by Otago PhD candidate Darnell Kennedy improved the technique of matching bacteria to the point where you got "statistically a virtually certain match".
"It is a much more accurate means of testing and much more robust statistically," Dr Tompkins said.
The research would increase the likelihood it would be used in forensic labs to catch criminals, but Dr Tompkins could not say when it would be used for criminal cases.
"Forensic labs are very reluctant to use a technique that has never been used before, so you have a kind of chicken and egg [situation]," he said.
The other research by student Lillian Hsu helped solve the potential problem caused by oral bacteria's short survival time.
Her recently published research showed the DNA of dead Streptococci bacteria recovered from bite marks could be used to get a match, extending the window for retrieving bacteria from 24 hours to 48 hours after the bite.
Dr Tompkins hoped the technique could one day be used instead of the method of matching an image of a bite mark to a suspect's teeth, which had been found to be "very unreliable".
"We are trying to eliminate that subjective analysis," he said.
Matching the bacteria, which was unique to the individual, could help prove guilt and also exonerate people who might otherwise have been convicted.
