Injaz—the world’s first cloned camel—was born last Wednesday in Dubai. It wasn’t easy—the process took the Camel and Reproduction Centre (CRC) and the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory a good five years, all to create a 66-pound baby.
Nisar Wani, a researcher at the CRC, removed DNA from cells in the ovaries from an unfortunate camel who was chopped up for meat in 2005. The salvaged DNA was then put into a surrogate mother’s egg to produce the clone, after gestating for just over a year.
So far very few pictures of the camel have surfaced on the Internet—compared to the number of times Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, was photographed in her heyday. Sure there have been monkeys, calves, and mules that have been cloned since then, so maybe one humped camels aren’t so far-fetched after all?
Related Content:
80beats: Easier To Clone A Human
DISCOVER: FDA Approves Food From Cloned Animals
Image: Courtesy of The Central Veterinary Research Laboratory
April 16th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hello, Boonsri! I’m glad to see you’re progressing so well as a science writer. Keep it up!
Your honorary Grandpa, Peter
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
Very useful!
June 8th, 2009 at 11:53 am
[...] scientists in India, we can add buffalo to the list of animals that have been cloned—including a camel, a wolf and, of course, the legendary [...]