The 23rd International Congress of the International Society for Forensic Genetics was held from 15 to 18 September 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The president of the congress was Professor Eduardo Raimondi, Favaloro Foundation Immunogenetics (PRICAI), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before the congress, educational workshops were held 14–15 August 2009.
The educational workshops were: Genetic information on the web (Organizer: Chris Phillips), Interpretation of DNA profiles (Organizer: Peter Gill), Mitochondrial DNA and EMPOP (Organizer: Walther Parson), Y chromosome markers and YHRD (Organizer: Lutz Roewer), Fundamentals of capillary electrophoresis (Organizer: John Butler), Everything you need to know about validation (Organizer: John Butler), DNA and the missing: Practice, progress and perspectives (Organizer: Tom Parsons). Each of the educational workshops was attended by 50–100 participants.
The scientific programme of the congress began on 15 August 2009 with the ISFG Scientific Prize 2007 Lecture given by Reinhard Szibor, Magdeburg, Germany: The X-chromosome in forensic genetics. Five invited speakers, 41 selected, oral presentations and 317 posters made the congress a success. The board of the ISFG presented a prize for the best oral presentation to Ms Ana Freire-Aradas for the presentation; Ana Freire-Aradas1, Manuel Fondevila1, Christopher Phillips1, Peter Gill2, Lourdes Prieto3, Ángel Carracedo1, María Victoria Lareu1, 1Forensic Genetics Unit, Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2Centre for Forensic Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 3University Institute of Research Police Sciences (IUICP), DNA Laboratory, Comisaría General de Policía Científica, Madrid, Spain: A New SNP Assay for Human Identification of Highly Degraded DNA. The prize for the best poster was given to Peter Vallone for the presentation Peter Vallone1, Carolyn Hill1, Daniele Podini2, John Butler1, 1U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Maryland, United States, 2The George Washington University, Washington D.C., United States: Rapid Amplification of Commercial STR Typing Kits.
This volume of Progress in Forensic Genetics is published as a supplement to Forensic Science International: Genetics. This supplement with the proceedings of the ISFG congress will be freely available to all readers. The proceedings mainly contain short manuscripts of the oral and poster presentations at the congress. The manuscripts have been through an editing procedure in order to keep the total volume of the publication at a level that can be afforded by the ISFG. However, priority was given to fast publication of the volume and, therefore, the manuscripts were neither reviewed nor edited in detail if the message was clear to the reader. The articles reflect the opinions of the authors. We hope that the readers will understand and agree with this decision.