The University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Medicine's Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI) received additional funding to solve Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) cases.
OMI has a backlog of remains and DNA that need to be identified, according to KOB 4. The office received $374,000 in additional federal funding to help researchers process DNA more quickly and notify the families of the deceased.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) hopes the new federal funding can help with gathering more accurate data so that UNM and the OMI can improve on the research they've done so far to make strides and ensure that MMIW cases are solved.
"The issue of missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls is something that hasn't gotten the attention it needs to get if we're going to break the cycle of violence," Heinrich said, according to KOB 4. "UNM, with their background in forensic anthropology, is uniquely poised in the country to help make progress on the issue of missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls."
The new funding will enable the lab to create a larger database of Native American DNA, which will help identify missing indigenous women faster. The OMI will also be able to make the databases more efficient by introducing machine learning and AI into the process, and using the computer's efficiency to reduce the amount of time and manpower required.
"Our research that we're working on right now is to improve that identification so that, when a skeleton comes in, we can do a better job at estimating it to be Native American and, hopefully, help narrow the pool of missing persons that individuals will be compared to and get that body returned to families sooner," Heather Edgar, a forensic anthropologist, told KOB 4 News.