Thangai Veera Si. Annan

The faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry Sheri Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and Technology, Kashmir has made a breakthrough by successfully cloning the first pashmina goat using the advanced reproductive techniques under the leadership of Dr Riaz Ahmad Shah, associate professor, Centre of Animal Biotechnology, Kashmir.

“Success was achieved under the World Bank-funded project called the National Agricultural Innovation Project of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and took two years for standardisation of the technique. The healthy female kid was born on March 9, 2012 using a foster mother.

The world’s first pashmina goat clone, produced in Kashmir, has been named Noori, an Arabic word referring to light, in Srinagar by a group of scientists and researchers.
“Noori has gained weight. From 1.3 kg at the time of birth on March 9, 2012, it’s 5 kg. She is healthy and was allowed to be part of more than two dozen pashmina goats assembled at Alastaingh laboratory for the purpose,” said Dr Fazili.

Noori took two years of scientific research. “It took two years for standardisation of the technique,” said Dr Shah.

The clone has come as good news for fine fiber-producing pashmina goats, which are only spotted at an altitude of 14,000 feet in Ladakh, the coldest region of the state. ”With Noori there is hope that pashmina can be yielded in lower altitude like Kashmir valley,” said Dr Fazili.

The valley owes its fame, besides natural beauty, to famed fine wool of pashmina, gathered from mountainous of Ladakh after the goat sheds its wool as a natural process.

The goat survives minus 40 degree Celsius temperature at an altitude of 14,000 feet. In spring, the animal sheds its fiber, called soft pashm, six times finer than human hair. The fiber is used to spun famous kashmiri shawls, scarves, and stoles.

It is hoped that this research will help other labs across the region clone their own goats and even revive endangered species.

Cashmere wool, particularly made into shawls, is a major source of income for Kashmir, generating about $80 million a year for the Indian-controlled portion of the mountain area. A shawl can cost $200 in Kashmir and much more when sold abroad — a boon given the average salary of $800 a year for Kashmir’s 10.2 million people.

Experts say their numbers are dwindling. In recent years, Kashmir has started importing cashmere from neighboring China to keep up with orders for the region’s hand-woven shawls.

‘This is the cheapest, easier and less time-consuming’ method of cloning, compared with conventional methods that use high-tech machinery and sometimes chemicals, Shah said.

Noori is the first cashmere goat cloned by this method, though Shah earlier cloned a buffalo. They plan to spread the goat-cloning knowledge across the Indian Himalayas so others can grow their own goats.

Cloning – the history:

The world first animal clone Dolly, a sheep, was created on 5 July 1996. It survived for seven years.

This is a list of animals that have been cloned in alphabetical order. One significant aspect of this list is documenting the transition from early concerns that animal cloning procedures might be limited to a few species that cloned animals might be physiologically abnormal, or cloning might lack utility for society.

Camel:

Injaz(Arabic: meaning “achievement”; born April 8, 2009) is a female dromedary camel, credited with being the world’s first cloned camel. Dr. Nisar Ahmad Wani, who headed the research team in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, announced on April 14, 2009, that the cloned camel was born after an “uncomplicated” gestation of 378 days.

Carp:

Chinese embryologist Tong Dizhou successfully inserted the DNA from a male Asian carp into the egg of a female Asian carp to create the first fish clone in 1963. In 1973 Dizhou inserted Asian carp DNA into a European crucian carp to create the first interspecies clone.

Cattle

• First World cloned calf (Gene) was born on February 7, 1997 on American Breeders Service facilities in Deforest, Wisconsin. Later it was transferred and kept to Minnesota Zoo Education Center.
• A Holstein heifer named Amy was cloned by Dr. Xiangzhong (Jerry) Yang using ear skin cells from a high-merit cow named Aspen at the University of Connecticut on June 10, 1999, followed by three additional clones, Betty, Cathy and Daisy by July 7, 1999.
• Second Chance, a Brahman bull was cloned from Chance, a beloved celebrity bull. Second Chance was born August 9, 1999 at Texas A&M University.
• Texas A&M University cloned a Black Angus bull named 86 Squared in 2000, after cells from his donor, Bull 86, had been frozen for 15 years. Both bulls exhibit a natural resistance to Brucellosis, Tuberculosis and other diseases which can be transferred in meat.
• Millie and Emma were two female Jersey cows cloned at the University of Tennessee in 2001. They were the first cows to be produced using standard cell-culturing techniques.
• Pampa the first animal cloned in Argentina by Biosidus (2002)
• Ten more Jersey cows were cloned at the University of Tennessee. (females, 2002)
• Bonyana and Tamina cloned calf in Royan Research Institute,Isfahan, Iran in summer of 2009.
• In 2010 the first Spanish Fighting Bull was cloned by Spanish scientists.
• Anatolian Grey bull (Efe) was cloned in Turkey in 2009 and cattle from the same breed no(Ece, Ecem, Nilufer, Kiraz) by TUBITAK
• GARIMA- I: world’s first buffalo calf through the “Hand guided Cloning Technique” was born on February 6, 2009 at NDRI, Karnal(India).
• GARIMA- II: NDRI, Karnal(India).
• Cloned male buffalo calf Shresth born on August 26, 2010 at National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, India

Deer

Dewey was born on May 23, 2003 at Texas A&M University.

Dog

• South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk cloned the first dog, an afghan hound named Snuppy. Later in 2005 Hwang Woo-Suk was found to have fabricated evidence in stem cell research projects. This caused some to question the veracity of his other experiments, including Snuppy. In their investigation of Hwang Woo-Suk’s publication, however, a team from SNU confirmed that Snuppy was a true clone of Tei, the DNA donor dog. South Korean scientists recently cloned ’sniffer’ dogs.
• BioArts International held a dog cloning contest where people would send in submissions about which dog was the most suited to be cloned. The winner was Trakr, a K-9 police dog who was a 9/11 hero.
• In summer 2011, South Korean researchers cloned a beagle dog named Tegon, which glowed in ultraviolet light

Ferret

Clones Libby and Lilly were produced via nuclear transfer by cell fusion in 2004

Frog

In 1958, John Gurdon, then at Oxford University, explained that he had successfully cloned a frog. He did this by using intact nuclei from somatic cells from a Xenopus tadpole. This was an important extension of work of Briggs and King in 1952 on transplanting nuclei from embryonic blastula cells

Gaur

A species of wild cattle, the first endangered species to be cloned. In 2001 at the Trans Ova Genetics in Sioux Center, Iowa, USA, a cloned Gaur was born from a surrogate domestic cow mother. However, the calf died within 48 hours

Goat

• Downen TX 63 684 (nicknamed Megan) was cloned from a top producing Boer goat born on March 29, 2001 at Texas A&M University.
• The Middle East’s first and the world’s fifth cloned goat, ‘Hanna’, has been successfully born at Royan institute in Isfahan, Iran. The cloned goat was developed in the surrogate uterus of a black Bakhtiari goat for 147 days and was born, Wednesday, at 1:30 a.m. through a cesarean section. She is reported to be in a good health. Hanna, also known as R-CAP-C1, is completely distinguished from other goats because of its white and henna-like color. Iran’s first cloned lamb, Royana, was born September 30, 2006 in Royan institute and was able to survive the post-natal complications common in cloned animals. Iranian researchers are looking to use cloned goats to produce the genetically modified animals required for manufacturing new recombinant medications.(April 2009) Isfahan, Iran

Horse

• Prometea, female, born May 2003, Italy
• Pieraz, male, born February 2005, Italy
• Paris-Texas, male, born March 2005, USA
• Gemini, male, born September 2008, USA, clone of multiple recipient of “Horse of the Year” award for jumping Gem Twist
• Saphir, male, born February 2010, USA, clone of show jumper Sapphire

Mice

• Possibly the first cloned mammal was a mouse (named “Masha”) in 1986, in the Soviet Union. However, the cloning was done from an embryo cell, while the sheep Dolly in 1996 was cloned from an adult cell.
• The first mouse from adult cells, Cumulina, was born in 1997 at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in the laboratory of Ryuzo Yanagimachi using the Honolulu technique.
• Over a dozen clones as of 2002.

Mouflan

An endangered species, the Mouflon was the first to live past infancy. Cloned 2001

Mule

• Idaho Gem (male, May 2003)
• Utah Pioneer (male, June 2003)
• Idaho Star (male, July 2003)

Pig

• 5 Scottish PPL piglets (Millie, Alexis, Dotcom, Carrel, and Christa) (March 5, 2000) .
• Xena (female, August 2000).

Pyrenean Ibex

In 2009, one clone was alive, but died seven minutes later, due to physical defects in the lungs. The Pyrenean Ibex became the first taxon ever to come back from extinction, for a period of seven minutes in January 2009.

Rabbit

In France (March–April, 2003

Rat

Ralph (male, 2003)

Rhesus Monkey

• Tetra (female, January 2000) by embryo splitting.
• Cloned embryos (November 2007) by transfer of DNA from adult cells

Sheep

• From early embryonic cells by Steen Willadsen (1986). Megan and Morag cloned from differentiated embryonic cells in June 1995.
• Dolly (1996–2003), first cloned mammal from somatic cells.
• Polly and Molly (July 1997), first transgenic cloned mammal.
• Royanan(2006) cloned in Royan Research institute in Isfahan, Iran.
• Oyali and Zarife were cloned in November 2007 in Istanbul University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Water Buffalo

The world’s first water buffalo was cloned either in Beijing China in 2005 or New Delhi, India in 2009 “Samrupa”, the world’s first cloned buffalo calf, which died a week later from a lung infection.

Wolf

• An endangered species of wolf cloned by Korean scientists including the controversial scientist Hwang Woo-Suk.
• There are two cloned wolves in a zoo in Korea for public view, they are called Snuwolf and Snuwolffy which are names taken from the university in Korea, Seoul National University.

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