MADISON, Wis. -- State officials unveiled an expanded State Crime Lab on Wednesday with the aim of reversing the DNA backlog.

VIDEO: Watch The Report

Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced the expansion in the analysis portion of the lab.

Currently, 27 new DNA analysts are being trained. Eight of the analysts will end up working in the lab's Milwaukee facility, WISC-TV reported.

State Justice Department officials said that no other state has ever trained so many DNA analysts at once.

The DNA backlog was a hot-button issue in the attorney general race. A year and a half later, Van Hollen said Wednesday was a "momentous occasion" because more than two dozen new analysts are poised to eliminate the backlog.

Van Hollen said that he hopes that the state will be caught up on the backlog, which is currently about 1,600 cases by 2010.

With the help of a new computer nicknamed "DiNA," newly trained analysts said they are ready to help solve crimes.

"I'm a little bit nervous, more about the gross factor potentially," said new analyst Amy Buscher, a mother with a Ph.D. who took a pay cut to take the crime lab job. "Some of the evidence we get in is pretty disturbing and so that part of it is what I'm a little bit concerned about."

But Buscher and her new colleagues said it'll all be worth it if they can expose criminals by shining a light on the conclusive genetic material called DNA.

Van Hollen said he believes the state is now turning the corner on the backlog problem for good. He said that last month, DNA labs in Madison and Milwaukee completed more than 320 DNA cases, more than three times the average monthly processing that was being done in 2006.

The backlog is predicted to be gone by 2010, as the new analysts, new space and new robots all team up to do more of the work. Van Hollen said that the immediate efficiency could go down at first during the training process, but he expects the learning curve to be a fast one.

"(It's about) getting results, finding the bad guy and putting them in jail, or exonerating someone -- it works both ways. So, I'm looking forward to that," Buscher said.

The state Legislature approved a total 31 new analysts, so four more have yet to go through hiring and the year-long training.

Crime lab officials said it will cost $1.5 million a year for all of the new positions. The space and robots that help quickly process DNA add up to a one-time cost of roughly $5 million.