Although DNA fingerprinting is a very young branch of molecular genetics, being barely six years old, its recent impact on science, law and politics has been dramatic. The application of DNA finger- printing to forensic and legal medicine has guaranteed a high public profile for this technology, and indeed, scarcely a week goes by with- out the press reporting yet another crime successfully solved by molec- ular genetics. Less spectacularly, but equally importantly, DNA typing methods are steadily diffusing into an ever wider set of applications and research fields, ranging from medicine...