STS Lecture Series

Establishing a Native Americans Genetic Research Program:
The Role of the International Biological Program

Margot Iverson
Ph.D. candidate
History of Science and Technology Program, University of Minnesota

Abstract

The International Biological Program was a multi-year project which ran from 1967 to 1974. Organized around the theme of "The Biological Basis of Productivity and Human Welfare," the IBP was intended to foster international scientific collaboration and to promote worldwide research on the environment. Fifty-eight countries were involved directly in the IBP, and among these the United States was one of the most important contributors of both scientific research and organizational leadership. Analysis of the IBP's impact on U.S. science has concentrated on the ecological component of the program and its effect on the emerging field of ecology during an era of growing environmental concern. Yet the U.S. IBP effort also included extensive biological research on humans. In particular, as part of the human adaptability subsection of the IBP, American scientists participated in large-scale studies of Native North and South Americans. These populations were identified as scientifically valuable because of their unique genetic heritage and because they were perceived to be rapidly disappearing, and a key component of IBP research was thus the collection of extensive genetic information. My talk will focus on this genetic research and the conceptualization behind it of Native American communities as vanishing genetic resources. I will also discuss the links between this IBP research and the more recently proposed Human Genome Diversity Program, a project which has also focused on indigenous Americans as biologically endangered and genetically unique, and which has been met with strong objections from Native communities.