October 12, 2007

Scientists in the Philippines hope to clone milk yielding buffalo

Scientists in the Philippines are studying ways to improve the genetic make-up of the a cloned water buffalo for it to yield more milk, reported the official Philippines News Agency on Wednesday (October 10, 2007).

The Philippines succeeded in cloning the first water buffalo in southeast Asia recently.

Despite a big buffalo herd, the country is a major importer of milk and dairy products as milk production is low, the agency reported.

The country, which has a herd of 3 million carabaos, spends nearly half a billion US dollars importing milk each year, said Edwin Atabay, supervising science research specialist at the Philippine Carabao (buffalo) Center in Munoz, Nueva Ecija in central Luzon.

The project was jointly launched by the Carabao Center and the Philippine Council on Agriculture and Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development.

Atabay said that the process would start with the selection of an Indian buffalo which has superior milk-producing capability. Researchers would then clone the buffalo by transferring the nuclear materials from the Indian buffalo into mature cells which already have their nucleus removed.