Dr. A. K. Srivastava, Director, National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, informed that another female cloned calf named ‘APURVA’ produced through the “Hand-guided Cloning Technique” was born on February 5, 2015. The calf was born by normal parturition, and its weight at the time of birth was around 37 kg. The newborn calf is keeping in good health. The new born calfis clone of an elite Murrah buffalo (MU-5345) of NDRI Livestock Farm. Earlier Lalima was produced from the same buffalo.

The team of the scientists involved in the production of this cloned calf, are Dr. S.K. Singla, Dr. M.S. Chauhan, Dr. R.S. Manik, Dr. P. Palta, Dr. S.S. Lathwal, Mr. Pankaj, Mr. Anuj Raja and Mr. Amol Sahare. In this case the donor cell was isolated from urine an excretory material of elite female Murrah buffalo, which produced 2713 kg milk in standard lactation period of 305 days and 3494 kg in total lactation period of 471 days, during her 3rd lactation. To our knowledge this is the first report in the world across the species in which somatic cells has been isolated from urine and cloned calf has been produced.

Dr. S. Ayyappan, Secretary DARE and Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi congratulated the team and said that this new achievement of producing cloned calf from adult lactating animals by “Hand-guided Cloning” technique will facilitate faster multiplication of elite germ plasm and help us to face the challenges of increasing demands of milk due to growing human population.

Dr. A. K. Srivastava, Director, NDRI, further emphasized that this technology could go a long way in multiplying the number of best milch buffaloes in India. He said that although, the world’s largest population of buffaloes is in India and they contribute about 55 per cent of the total milk production in the country, but the percentage of elite buffaloes is very less and there is an urgent need to enhance the population of these elite buffaloes.

Source : National Dairy Research Institute