REVIEW Back to the Future - Part 2. Post-mortem assessment and evolutionary role of the bio-medicolegal sciences Santo Davide Ferrara 1 & Giovanni Cecchetto 1 & Rossana Cecchi 2 & Donata Favretto 1 & Silke Grabherr 3 & Takaki Ishikawa 4 & Toshikazu Kondo 5 & Massimo Montisci 1 & Heidi Pfeiffer 6 & Maurizio Rippa Bonati 7 & Dina Shokry 8 & Marielle Vennemann 6 & Thomas Bajanowski 9 Received: 20 February 2017 /Accepted: 29 March 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract Part 2 of the review BBack to the Future^ is dedi- cated to the evolutionary role of the bio-medicolegal sciences, reporting the historical profiles, the state of the art, and pros- pects for future development of the main related techniques and methods of the ancillary disciplines that have risen to the role of Bautonomous ^ sciences, namely, Genetics and Genomics, Toxicology, Radiology, and Imaging, involved in historic synergy in the Bpost-mortem assessment,^ together with the mother discipline Legal Medicine, by way of its pri- mary fundament, universally denominated as Forensic Pathology. The evolution of the scientific research and the increased accuracy of the various disciplines will be oriented towards the elaboration of an Balgorithm,^ able to weigh the value of Bevidence^ placed at the disposal of the Bjustice system^ as real truth and proof. Keywords Medicolegal autopsy . Forensic autopsy . Post-mortemassessment . Bio-Medicolegal sciences- Forensic Pathology . Genetics and genomics . Toxicology . Radiology and imaging Introduction From Part 1 of this review entitled BBack to the Future,^ it emerges how the medicolegal autopsy is being projected towards the post-genomic era, after having been based for millennia on the Brational credibility criteria^ founded on the experience and expertise of the medicolegal ascertainer. The same autopsy re- cords, until the nosographic classification brought into being by J. Bohn in 1689, was founded on the mnemonic conservation of anecdotal cases possessed by the single Bpathologist, ^ to whose authority were exclusively entrusted the solution of the case and the validity of the evidence expected by the Judge. With the advent of the experimental method and, therefore, of modern legal medicine, evolving in the bio-medicolegal sciences, we are witnessing a progressive systematization of disciplinary knowledge, the prodigious and fragmented wealth of which has prompted the inevitable sharing of guide- lines and protocols, of compliance with rules and procedures, previously unknown to the Bclinical, doctrinal and empirical sense,^ entrusted to the singular and therefore highly personal work of the individual BMaster.^ It concerns that it is an ineluctable process of organization of scientific knowledge, in general, and of bio-medicolegal knowledge, in particular. The future prospects of these are briefly retraced in part 2 of the review, for the sole disciplines * Santo Davide Ferrara santodavide.ferrara@unipd.it 1 Department of Legal and Occupational Medicine, Toxicology and Public Health, University-Hospital of Padova, Padua, Italy 2 Department of Biomedical, Biotechnological and Translational Medicine, University of Parma, Parma, Italy 3 University Center of Legal Medicine Lausanne-Geneva, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland 4 Department of Legal Medicine, Osaka City University Medical School, Osaka, Japan 5 Department of Forensic Medicine, Wakayama Medical University, Wakayama, Japan 6 Institute of Legal Medicine, University-Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany 7 Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Section of Medical Humanities, University of Padova, Padua, Italy 8 Department of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Toxicology, University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt 9 Institute of Legal Medicine, University-Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany Int J Legal Med DOI 10.1007/s00414-017-1585-7