Skip to main content

Dubai Camel Cloning Caters To Races, Beauty Pageants

Having led the world's first cloning of camels in 2009, Nisar Wani is now replicating a few dozen a year at a Dubai lab - a big business in the Gulf region where camels are cherished and can earn huge sums in beauty and racing contests.

"We collect these eggs from the ovaries of slaughtered animals. We have to mature them in the lab for 24 hours before they reach the stage where we can use them for the cloning process," Mr Wani said.

Reproductive cloning of animals uses a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer. DNA is removed from a camel egg cell and replaced with DNA from a frozen body cell of a camel prized for some quality such as speed or beauty. The egg then develops into an embryo with no sperm needed.

Animal cloning is, however, time-consuming with low success rates.

"From a hundred embryos that we transfer, we can have five to ten pregnancies, and sometimes maybe three to six babies born," said Wani, originally a veterinarian who has a PhD in animal reproduction.

The Reproductive Biotechnology Centre in Dubai works to preserve the cells of and reproduce elite racing camels, beauty contest winners, milking camels and prized males, Wani said.

It also uses interspecies cloning technology to preserve threatened species.

It has cloned critically endangered, double-humped wild Bactrian camels using the eggs and surrogate mothers of single-humped camels, Mr Wani said.

"In cloning, we are not doing anything new. God has created all the material. God has created the cells, we are only helping the process," Wani said, adding it was one of a number of assisted reproductive technology techniques.

Most of the centre's work preserving elite traits is done through the more conventional multiple embryo transfer method.

A valued camel's ovary is stimulated to produce multiple eggs. After fertilisation with prized sperm, multiple embryos can be transferred to surrogate camels.

"This year for example we have 20 pregnancies from one good male and one good female," Wani said.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/SmbWP7Z

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sri Lanka Must Achieve Debt Restructuring By September: IMF

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday reaffirmed that Sri Lanka must achieve its debt restructuring process by September, which is also the time for the global lender's formal review of the bailout facility it extended to the cash-strapped nation. On March 20, IMF extended a nearly $3 billion bailout facility to debt-ridden Sri Lanka that would help stabilise the country's economy after it was jolted by a devastating economic crisis last year. In a statement issued on Tuesday at the end of a nearly two weeks staff visit to Colombo to assess the progress made by Sri Lanka since the agreement was reached, the IMF said the two sides had discussed the developments on debt restructuring. "Sri Lanka must achieve debt restructuring by its first review due in September. We also discussed progress on debt restructuring, noting the ongoing discussions with both foreign and domestic creditors," the statement read. Sri Lanka is still struggling to normalise its crisis-hi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gaza's Rafah Border Crossing Area Hit In Military Strike

The area of the Rafah border crossing between the blockaded Gaza Strip and Egypt was hit Monday in a military strike, AFP correspondents said, as hundreds of Palestinians gathered hoping to cross. The area of the shuttered crossing point in Gaza's south had been hit at least three times last week by Israeli air strikes after Gaza-based Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 that triggered all-out war. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/z9CBc7N
Post a Comment
Read more

Released 2 American Hostages On "Humanitarian Grounds": Hamas

Gaza's ruler Hamas said Friday its armed wing has released two American hostages, from around 200 captives abducted in attacks by the militant group in Israel on October 7. "In response to Qatari efforts, (Ezzedine) al-Qassam Brigades released two American citizens (a mother and her daughter) for humanitarian reasons," Hamas said in a statement posted on Telegram. The Islamist group did not detail how or when the hostages were released. The Israeli military said earlier Friday that most of those abducted to Gaza were still alive. "The majority of the hostages are alive. There were also dead bodies that were taken... to the Gaza Strip," an army statement said. The military said more than 20 hostages were minors, while between 10 and 20 were over the age of 60. There are also between 100 and 200 people considered missing since the Hamas attacks, the army added. On October 7, the Palestinian militant group carried out a deadly assault on Israel, the worst in...
Post a Comment
Read more