Earlier this year, a Canadian family discovered they were descended from King Richard III, whose skeletal remains were discovered under a parking lot in England.
This royal tale is a fascinating example of the power - and possibility - of DNA testing to solve centuries-old mysteries.
So far, no royal connections have been discovered in New Westminster, but a DNA testing business has been operating in the city for more than a decade.
Orchid PRO-DNA offers a number of DNA testing options, but the New Westminster facility focuses mainly on relationship testing.
"We are the most important company across Canada that does relationship testing," says Yvan Côté, general manager of Warnex Medical Laboratories, who works at the company's Quebec laboratory and was visiting the local office.
The majority of testing is for paternity, general knowledge, custody, estate issues and immigration testing.
The company also does forensic testing, but the main office is in Ontario.
It has about 200 patient service centres across Canada, and, along with routine testing, Orchid PRO-DNA is involved with clinical trials and drug testing.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms, explains the Genetics Home Reference website.
It was the infamous O. J. Simpson trial in 1995 that first put the concept of DNA into the public consciousness, Orchid PRO-DNA customer service manager Shari McKendrick says.
Orchid Cellmark tested the DNA evidence used at the trial. Orchid PRO-DNA is the combined name for the amalgamated companies, Orchid Cellmark and Warnex PRO-DNA, both of which are divisions of Gamma-Dynacare Medical Laboratories.
"It hadn't been issued in court cases previous to that, so it was kind of very new," McKendrick says. "Dr. Robin Cotton was on the stand, who worked out of Cellmark, and she had to try explain to people what DNA testing was.
"She had to explain how it matches . people had no knowledge. It was like a mystery science to everybody at the time, so there was a lot of education through that court case as to people listening to what DNA testing was."
The O.J. trial also changed the way samples are collected forensically and who touches evidence in the "chain of custody," McKendrick explains.
"If you've watched CSI, they put little markers down to a blood drop or a piece of tissue on the ground," McKendrick says, explaining the chain-of-custody concept. "They put a number. They photograph it. They have to pick it up, put it in an evidence bag, and sign off on it. It's sealed. Next person who opens it, signs off on it, because there's been a lot of court cases where the chain of custody has been broken, and the evidence is thrown out."
While the criminal possibilities of DNA testing garner the most attention and intrigue, there are also health benefits.
The company recently began offering a non-invasive fetal trisomy testing, called the Harmony Prenatal Test, which screens for chromosome abnormalities in a developing fetus.
"After 10 weeks of pregnancy, we just do a simple sample of blood, extract the fetal DNA out of the mother's blood, and we can (screen to see) if the baby has Trisomy 21, 18 or 13," Côté says.
The health-care system doesn't cover the cost of the test, but Côté says it's something they are working on. The test costs less than amniocentesis, and it's 99 per cent accurate, he says.
"This is going to change pre-natal testing," Côté says.
But it doesn't completely eliminate the potential need for amniocentesis.
"Amino is a diagnostic tool, this is a screening tool," Côté says. "The difference is if you are positive on this test, you still have to go to amino."
But it could mean that fewer women have to go through amniocentesis or Chorionic villi sampling, another testing measure, which both carry a small risk of miscarriage.
"What we are looking at here is the same thing as a bar code you have on a bottle of milk," Côté says, summing up how they read DNA.
But they don't analyze the DNA beyond the required assessment.
In other words, they aren't going to tell you if your child will have blue or brown eyes.
"It's not a whole overall scope," says McKendrick.
"DNA is a huge book. We are just looking at a fraction of the book," Côté adds.
Samples are destroyed after testing, they say.
Blood used to be the fluid of choice for testing, but they've moved to cheek swabs now, McKendrick says.
"People can do the results onsite or at home. If it's for legal purposes, it must be done in-house. If it's out of curiosity, it can be done at home," she says. "For a couple that have a baby, and they're questioning the paternity . they might do a curiosity test."
The analyzing is done at a company facility in Quebec.
As for testing to determine one's ethnic lineage, Côté says it's something they don't do because there needs to be a database to compare sequences.
"There have been a few companies that have tried, and they have not succeeded," McKendrick says. "It's complicated."
But they do test different people to see if they come from the same genetic line - so, perhaps one day, a royal relative will be discovered in the Royal City.
