Sanger Institute told to return African tribes’ genome samples

The Wellcome Sanger Institute in the U.K. is in hot water over purported plans for creating a commercial tool using genetic data from several African tribes, according to The Times in London. Documents obtained by the Times show that Stellenbosch University in South Africa is asking the U.K. genomics institution to return the samples, as continuing with its plans could have “serious legal and ethical consequences.” Some scientists formerly at Sanger filed a whistleblower complaint last year alleging the DNA data had been obtained for research purposes and that Sanger’s plan would have violated the terms of participants’ consent forms. Sanger had reportedly arranged to build 75,000 of the tools — to better analyze genomic data from African populations —but a whistleblower claimed the tribes’ data weren’t used because of the dispute. Sanger has denied the allegations.