Cloned buffalo gave birth to a baby buffalo in India!

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Garima-II, the cloned buffalo was born on August 22nd, 2010. She survived without any complications and delivered a calf at 1.51am yesterday. The baby buffalo is called Mahima. She weighs 32 kg. Mahima is in very good health. She started sucking milk within 30 minutes of her birth. Thanks Garima-II for giving birth to a healthy baby buffalo. Hello Mahima, the little sweetiepie baby, welcome to Earth! Long live both of you!

The scientists working for National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) produced the world’s first cloned buffalo through ‘advanced hand-guided cloning technique’. First clone died 6 days after birth. The second clone was alive for 2 years. The third clone is Garima-II, the proud mother.

Do you want to know about the Hand-guided cloning technique that was used to produced cloned animals?

Hand-guided cloning technique is an advanced modification of the conventional cloning technique that requires expensive micromanipulator machines. In this technique, immature oocytes are isolated from ovaries and are matured in-vitro. These are then denuded, treated with an enzyme to digest the outer covering called ‘zona pellucida’ and then treated with chemicals to push their genetic material to one side. This side is then cut off with the help of a hand-held fine microblade to remove the genetic material. The enucleated oocyte is then electrofused with a somatic cell taken from any source. The resulting embryos are cultured and grown in the laboratory for about seven days to develop them to the blastocyst stage. The embryos are then transferred to recipient buffaloes for producing cloned offspring.

Ain’t it cool?