Karnal: A male buffalo calf has been produced through at the Karnal-based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI). This is the world’s second male cloned calf.
The calf, named Swaran, was born through the new and advanced ‘hand-guided cloning technique’.
The calf, born by normal parturition and weighs 55 kg, is reported to be normal and healthy.
“Swaran” is keeping good health and has started suckling milk, said A.K. Srivastava, Director, National Dairy Research Institute.
This cloned buffalo calf is unique and different from the earlier clones because, in this case, the donor somatic cell used was isolated from the seminal plasma of a bull which is currently being used for donating semen at the Animal Breeding Research Centre of NDRI, Karnal, said Srivastava.
Achievement
The scientists said that this achievement was of particular interest to them because, using the same approach, they expect to re-create highly valuable progeny tested bulls, which may have died long ago, using their frozen semen available at breeding centre.
Srivastava said that there is an acute shortage of bulls and that this amay enable scientists to shrink the gap between the demand and supply of the bulls in a short time.
Swaran is the second male cloned calf in the world. Before Swaran, Shreshth was born on August 26, 2010 at NDRI.
Shresth was the first male buffalo born through the “hand-guided cloning technique" developed at NDRI.
Earlier this year, on January 25, the cloned buffalo Garima II gave birth to a calf and she was named Mahima.
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