The return is part of a groundbreaking approach that could inspire other institutions grappling with how to use historical samples ethically in research.

Last month, the Galiwin’ku community of Elcho Island off the coast of northern Australia celebrated the return of more than 200 vials of blood that were collected from their ancestors half a century ago, before modern research principles on informed consent existed. Unbeknownst to the Galiwin’ku community, the blood vials had been in freezers at the Australian National University in Canberra ever since.

Many Indigenous Australian communities believe that the remains of their people, including blood and hair, must return to their ancestral home, or Country, to be at peace. Having the blood vials returned “meant a lot to us”, says Ross Mandi Wunungmurra, chair of the Yalu Aboriginal Corporation, the community organization that helped negotiate the samples’ return. Mandi is one of several hundred living community members whose own blood was collected after a typhoid outbreak in 1968.
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Before the samples of the deceased were repatriated, the relatives gave permission for DNA to be extracted from the blood, while those still alive offered fresh samples. The genetic information will be stored in the biobank of the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics (NCIG), which the Australian National University (ANU) established specifically to manage its historical samples.
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