Meet Ganga, India’s first cloned Gir calf
KARNAL: Having produced 26 cloned calves successfully, the researchers at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, added another feather to their cap by cloning India’s first Desi (indigenous) Gir female calf.
The birth of a calf, which has been named Ganga, is the first cloned cattle of the Gir breed in the country.
The development is being considered a boost to the efforts of the Union government to promote indigenous breeds of cows in the country.
The calf was born on March 16, and the announcement in this regard was made on Monday when the ICAR-NDRI celebrated 100 years of its foundation.
Dheer Singh, director and vice-chancellor of ICAR-NDRI, Karnal, said that Ganga weighs 32kg and is growing well.
He said that Gir, a native breed of Gujarat, is becoming popular among dairy farmers because of its docile nature, good milk, tolerance to conditions of stress and resistance to various tropical diseases.
Outside India, Gir cattle have been exported to Brazil, the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela for the development of zebu cows, the director said.
The achievement will assist us to expand and initiate research activities for the cloning of cattle in India. The developed technique will bring new dimensions to our scientific efforts to produce quality indigenous dairy animals, he said.
A team of scientists comprising Dr Naresh Selokar, Manoj Kumar Singh, Ajay Aswal, SS Lathwal, Subhash Kumar, Ranjeet Verma, Kartikey Patel and MS Chauhan have been working for the past two years to develop an indigenous method to produce cloned cattle. The scientists said that to clone the Gir, oocytes are isolated from live animals using ultrasound-guided needles, and then, matured for 24 hours under control conditions. The somatic cells of elite cows are used as donor genomes, which are fused with OPU-derived enucleated oocytes. Following chemical activation and in-vitro culture, the developed blastocysts are transferred into recipient mothers to deliver the Gir calf.
Dr Ajay Dang, a senior scientist and public relations officer of the ICAR-NDRI, said that indigenous cattle breeds such as Gir, Sahiwal, Tharparkar, and RedSindhi, play a pivotal role in growth of the Indian dairy industry. “Animal cloning can play a key role in faster multiplying elite animals and the conservation of endangered breeds. In 2021, the NDRI-Karnal in collaboration with Uttarakhand Livestock Development Board (ULDB), Dehradun, had initiated the work on the cloning of indigenous cows such as Gir, Sahiwal, and Red Shindi,” he said. Himanshu Pathak, director general, ICAR-Delhi said, “I am hopeful that the team will continue their research for the refinement of technology and will produce more cloned cow calves.”