Lecture and Skype Discussion
Dr. Mariana Herrera Piñeiro
Director of the Argentine National DNA Data Bank
April 4, 2016
125 Nicholson Hall
11.15 am
The National DNA Data Bank (BNDG) was created at the beginning of the democratic recovery period in Argentina to help identify genetically the children of persons who had disappeared during the State Terrorism period between 1976 and 1983, and who had been deprived of their identity and appropriated by military oppressors based on a systematic plan designed and implemented by military officers of the highest rank.The BNDG developed a genetic database based on genetic samples provided by relatives (mainly grandparents) of appropriated children, which were received and stored at the BNDG. Thousands of genetic analyses were performed in children who were suspected to have been born from missing parents and had been appropriated by oppressors, and such analyses contributed to identify 119 children.
Sponsored by the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and the Human Rights Program
