NCIG Biospecimen Collection

The collection consists of biospecimens, that were collected from the 1960s until the early 1990s from approximately 7000 people from Indigenous communities across northern and western Australia. It was part of an ambitious world-wide project, the International Biological Programme – Human Adaptability section which aimed to enhance our understanding of humans living in the major environmental zones of earth. However changing political, social and ethical settings emerging in Australia resulted in the Australian National University (ANU) placing a moratorium in the late 1990s on research using the collection and the collection was placed in long-term storage.