By Niels Krogh Søndergaard, Department of Chemistry and Bioscience. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication

A team of researchers in biotechnology and genetics from the Department of Chemistry and Bioscience and the Department of Health Science and Technology have helped shed light on new aspects of a 20-year-old conviction of Australian Kathleen Folbigg who is in prison for killing her four children.

olbigg, who maintains her innocence, has received the support of signatures from hundreds of researchers as well as from the Australian Academy of Science. A group of Aalborg researchers have played a special role in the case as they identified a rare genetic defect in two of the deceased children in the Australian family which suggests they died of natural causes. 

The genetic defect impairs the function of the protein calmodulin where genetic defects are already known to cause serious abnormalities in the heart’s rhythm. In 2021, the AAU researchers, in an international collaboration, published a study that demonstrated that the genetic defect may have caused cardiac arrest in the two children.

- We don't think even we fully grasp how big a deal this is, says Professor Michael Toft Overgaard.

Explosive research findings

In Australia, the handling of the case and the many years Kathleen Folbigg has been incarcerated as a result has led to great public debate and could be a bombshell in the country's case law if she turns out not to be a murderer after all. Prosecutors have given Folbigg a rough ride and branded her as the worst mass murderer in the country's history.

In November 2022, the two AAU professors were in Australia the first time to testify in the case where the scientific hearings were initially scheduled. The Danish researchers brought brand new scientific data to Australia, which Australian media referred to as "explosive new evidence". The rest of the hearings were thus postponed until February so that all experts had time to look at the new data.

Amidst great international press coverage, Michael Toft Overgaard and Mette Nyegaard, professors of protein science and genetics, respectively, are now back in Sydney. Mette Nyegaard tries not to be affected by all the fuss:

- We don't take a stand on guilt. That's the judge's job, she says and continues:

- For us, it's about presenting scientific data and getting all parties to understand what we're saying. We’ve been told that since we were here in November, the judge has spent time studying genetics, so in a way it’s already a small victory for science.

Nyegaard and Overgaard were the first to testify in court in Sydney last week where new hearings are being held in the case. The two professors are now following the rest of the hearing with experts in sudden infant death syndrome, pathology, cardiology, psychology and genetics from around the world.