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Build a DNA database to help identify children stolen in conflicts

The secure and ethical use of genetic testing can assist family reunifications in Ukraine and other settings for humanitarian disasters.
By
  1. Sara Huston

    1. Sara Huston is a research assistant professor at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, and president and co-founder of DNA Bridge, Durham, North Carolina, USA.

People gather to protest the kidnapping of Ukrainian children by Russia in Brussels, Belgium.

In 2023, people lit candles beside teddy bears in Brussels to recognize children kidnapped from Ukraine and taken to Russia. Credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty

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Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria and elsewhere have exacerbated a global missing-persons crisis. There is an urgent need for an international DNA database designed specifically to aid the reunification of living family members. Such a database would help to lessen the trauma of those who have been separated. It would also help to provide evidence of human-rights violations.

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Nature 637, 792-793 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00073-8

References

  1. Raymond, N. A. et al. Russia’s Systematic Program of Coerced Adoption and Fostering of Ukraine’s Children (Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health; 2024).

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  2. Murphy, E. E. Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA (Nation, 2015).

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Competing Interests

S.H. is co-founder of a 510(c)(3) nonprofit DNA Bridge and an unpaid member of the ICMP Panel of Experts.

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