Her parents Gerry and Kate have never given up hope of finding the eldest of their three children.
There are a total of 18 samples Dr Perlin wants to analyse at his Pittsburgh laboratory, 12 years after they were screened by the UK's Forensic Science Service (FSS), which itself admits didn't have the equipment to delve deeper.
Dr Perlin told the Daily Star, "I think the FSS did generate reliable DNA data and their methods were proven laboratory methods, some of which they even innovated.
"But they didn't know how to properly interpret the data that they had generated," he explained to the publication, adding that it could take one to two to get preliminary results.
"If you use a computer programme that can use all of the data and consider millions of different possibilities, that would give you more information than other methods that usually give no answer at all."
Dr Perlin's lab can reportedly take credit for the findings in Australia's high profile mass murder trial of Robert Xie.
Xie killed five of his relatives and was not convicted at three previous trials.
Dr Perlin's findings were vital in the mass murderer finally getting convicted.
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