Srinagar, march 13 (Scoop News) – Faculty of Veterinary Sciences & Animal Husbandry SKUAST-Kashmir has made a breakthrough by successfully cloning the first Pashmina goat using the advanced reproductive techniques under the leadership of Associate Professor, Centre of Animal Biotechnology, Dr. Riaz Ahmad Shah and assisted by a team of scientists including Dr. Nazir A. Ganai, Dr. Hilal Musadiq, Dr. Mujeeb Fazili, Dr. F.D. Sheikh, Dr. T.A.S. Ganai together with Dr. Syed Hilal, Maajid Hassan and Firdous Khan as a Research Associates. Success was achieved under the World Bank funded project called National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) of ICAR and took two years for standardisation of the technique. The healthy female kid was born on March 09, 2012 using the foster mother. Dr. Riaz was the key researcher in the team of scientists who earlier in 2009 gave the first cloned buffalo calf, “Garima” to the world using the same handmade cloning technique while doing research at National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana.
The brief about this achievement was given by Director Research, Dr. Shafiq A Wani today during the inaugural session of weeklong training programme on “Reproductive technologies in sheep and goat” being organised by Centre of Animal Biotechnology, where scientists and field officers from various line departments are participating as trainees.
At the function, Professor In-charge, Centre of Animal Biotechnology, Dr Nazir Ahmad Ganai said that the success of this technology shall open up new vista in strategic and applied research which includes multiplication of elite animals of desired sex, stem cell technology for regenerative medicine, transgenics for production of biopharmaceuticals like Factor IX, alpha1 anti-trypsin etc of value in human medicine, cloned animals as disease models, and conservation of threatened wild and domestic animal species”.
Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Dr. Tej Partap and other officers of the university appreciated the team of scientists for this remarkable achievement and hoped that the technology will help to improve lot of Pashmina goats particularly in the Ladakh region to harness better income opportunities for the people of the region.
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