Cloned buffalo gives birth to 7th calf

Karnal, October 13

The cloned female buffalo, Garima II, which was produced on August 22, 2010, with the hand-guided cloning technique using embryonic stem cells as donor somatic cells by scientists of the ICAR-NDRI, gave birth to a female calf. It is the seventh calf of Garima II with a birth weight of 31kg.

As per the scientists, it gave birth to a female calf on October 9, but after complete health checkup and other verifications, the NDRI announced it on Thursday. The scientists claimed that Garima II was healthy and had normal growth and reproductive behaviour. “The successful birth of the calf proves that cloned animals and the calves produced from these are also similar to non-cloned animals in terms of health, growth and reproduction,” said by Dr Dheer Singh, Director, ICAR-NDRI.

“Over the decades, the NDRI, under the aegis of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has been working on the genetic improvement of buffalo species. For the faster multiplication of elite germplasm, NDRI has developed a simple, economical, and efficient animal-cloning technology, called hand-guided cloning, that is used for producing several cloned male and female buffaloes,” said the Director.

Team of jubilant scientists involved in the production of this calf, includes Dr Manoj Kumar Singh, Dr Naresh Selokar, Dr SS Lathwal, Dr Subhash Kumar, Kartikey Patel. Trials carried out at the ICAR-NDRI would certainly help in taking technology to the doorstep of farmers for enhancing the productivity of their animals, which would lead to future sustainable milk production in the country, said the Director.

In the past, the cloned buffalo has given birth to six normal and healthy calves (three females and three males) through artificial insemination (AI). All three females produced earlier were also reproductively normal and calved two to three times and produced up to 3,191 liters of milk in a lactation, which was normal for herd animals, said Dr Manoj Kumar Singh, Senior Scientist, Animal Biotechnology Centre of the NDRI. Garima II gave birth to first calf named “Mahima” on January 25, 2013 at the age of two years, five months, by AI, he added.