Bethany Forsythe: capacity for closure

Think ‘forensic scientist’ and, thanks to hit television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, most of us will imagine an overalls-clad figure in boots, mask and disposable headgear combing the scene of a bloody murder for clues.

But from her office at The Hague in the Netherlands, University of Auckland-trained forensic scientist Dr Bethany Forsythe is showing not only the variety of the job, but its capacity to bring closure for families many decades after death.

At 32, Bethany heads a small team developing sophisticated DNA-testing techniques to enable identification of remains discovered in Vietnam, 50 years after the war there ended in 1975.

Her work with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), which began with a two-year contract in 2023, has now been extended until the end of 2026. For the past two years, Bethany and her colleagues have been developing next-generation sequencing techniques to analyse nuclear DNA (from both parents – not the more plentiful maternal mitochondrial DNA) from the cells in badly degraded bone samples remaining from the war.

“They’ve been buried in soil for a really long time, so the degradation has been amplified,” says Bethany. “There’s a huge amount of microbial contamination in the bones as well because of the heat and moisture. They act like ancient DNA, from bones that are much older than they actually are.”

Her team has worked on 38 of the 100 bone samples sent to their lab from Vietnam for the testing to develop the new techniques. These techniques will enable them to sequence and analyse the exact make-up of millions of DNA fragments simultaneously.

“Previously, it was just looking at fragments of DNA and then separating them in a gel, based on size. You were examining the differences in the length of fragments between individuals; now we’re looking at so many more markers and actually what their DNA make-up is. The samples are so challenging that you’re pushing the boundaries of the technology.”

The techniques have been proven to work. Now, Bethany and her team – working with colleagues based in Vietnam and collaborators at Vietnam’s Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi – are about to begin using them on bones unearthed in Cao Bang, a remote province in northern Vietnam.

When working in a field that can be emotionally harrowing, the possibility of identifying the remains and bringing closure to families from a decades-old conflict is comforting.

“I’ve adjusted to working in a criminal space and constantly facing horrible cases, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what it’s like to be constantly reminded of atrocities in the world. Every programme we work with is generally associated with some kind of conflict, disaster or human suffering.”

Although the scientists are encouraged to keep up with all the news and information in their field, Bethany has found the mental toll of doing so can be challenging, and she tries to manage that exposure.

Especially since she became pregnant with her first baby, which at the time of writing was due in late October, with her partner Dr Maarten Kruijver. Maarten is also a scientist, a forensic statistician, whom she met while working at the then-ESR, now known as PHF Science (the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science) in Mt Albert. Maarten is from the Netherlands, which made the decision to relocate much easier.

Bethany’s path to Europe began with a Bachelor of Biomedical Science at Victoria University of Wellington, majoring in human genetics and molecular pathology. “I really liked the DNA side of biology.”

She had been attracted to a career in forensic science since her high school days, but not because of any CSI-type television shows, which she never watched. Her initial interest was piqued by an uncle – a detective who talked to her about some of his cases.

Studying in Auckland was always a part of that goal. “I’d always known even before I started studying at all, that the University of Auckland’s forensic postgrad course was the best one to do.”
A major part of the attraction to the Auckland programme, she says, was its strong links between academia and industry, particularly the then-ESR. “It’s very practically focused.”

Bethany began her masters degree in Auckland in 2015, after which she worked in the ESR’s criminal laboratories for two years before returning to the University to begin a doctorate. She completed her PhD in 2023, just before heading to The Hague.

“The more I studied, the more I learned how different all of the disciplines within forensics are. I guess that’s one of the things you get from the ‘CSI effect’ is that it’s all quite glamorous. But there are so many areas of expertise and modules of science that are needed for one case. The people who go to the crime scenes are aware of the biology and the DNA, but they’re not the experts in DNA. That’s the people in the lab doing the analysis.”

She had heard about, and been captivated by, the work of the ICMP during a 2018 conference in Perth, where she attended a presentation by a former Red Cross worker on humanitarian forensic science work after disasters.

“It was about how forensics and DNA could be used for that kind of closure. Criminal forensics is a dark field to work in and you’re constantly exposed to the worst of crime. When I listened to this man present on his work, I thought, ‘that’s such a rewarding area’. I just put ‘ICMP’ in my notebook and circled it. That’s when I decided I did want to go back and do a PhD.”

She was only months from presenting her doctoral thesis when Maarten found her current job advertised and she was hired after a couple of 3am Zoom interviews. Although US President Donald Trump has all but closed the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which initially funded the work, Bethany says the US government has committed to supporting the programme for the next 18 months.

For Bethany, bringing resolution and closure to those who have lost loved ones in war and other disasters is a key attraction of her work.

She hopes the advanced techniques being used in Vietnam can contribute to the identification of the missing on a global scale. Motivated by this potential, she says, “I’m committed to exploring how these methods can be applied in ongoing conflicts and other missing persons cases worldwide”.

– Donna Chisholm