Indigeneous organization opposes Genographic Project

Reaction from the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism to the Genographic Project. They are equating it to the Human Genome Diversity Project, http://www.stanford.edu/group/morrinst/hgdp.html due to the overlap in participants and stated goals focusing on indigenous peoples.

Genographic Project

The National Geographic Society has developed a new DNA project to map human migration patterns by DNA typing indigenous people throughout the world. The goal is to collect 100,000 DNA samples and type the Y chromosome DNA and the mitochondrial DNA.

A public project will allow individuals to purchase a test kit from Family Tree DNA, http://www.ftdna.com/ Proceeds from the public testing will be used to partially finance the Genographic Project. It is assumed that public participants will be able to join on-going surname studies already in place at FTDNA. Public participants will get the results of their tests.

The actual analysis of the indigenous samples will be done at 10 scientific laboratories located throughout the world.

The Genographic Project is directed by Dr Spencer Wells, and has a board consisting of many of the prominent geneticists who were part of the Human Genome Diversity Project.

The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, http://www.smgf.org/ has a similar project that accepts participants from throughout the world. SGMF has collected over 47,000 genealogies and DNA samples. Testing by Sorenson is free, but participants do not get any results except where their results are entered into the SMGF databases.