NDRI team clones female calf from high milk-producing buffalo

A team of scientists of Karnal-based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) has successfully cloned a female calf from the cells of a high milk-producing buffalo.Calf ‘Swarupa’ has been produced through the new and advanced ‘Hand-guided Cloning Technique’, while the donor cell was taken from the ear of an adult buffalo named ‘Karan-Kirti’ of the institute’s farm, NDRI Director A K Srivastava said on Friday.

‘Swarupa’ weighing 32 kg was born through normal delivery, he said.  Earlier, ‘Purnima’, a clone of ‘Karan-Kirti’ was born on September 6, 2013, which could survive only for 19 days.With ‘Swarupa’, NDRI has so far produced 11 cloned calves, out of which 3 have died.The scientists involved in the production of ‘Swarupa’ were S K Singla, M S Chauhan, R S Manik, P Palta, S S lathwal and Anuj K Raja. They said that clone calves which are produced using somatic cells from adult animals can bring revolution by copying the proven genetics many folds.